


The First Park

by michie1997



Series: Life Finds a Way [1]
Category: Jurassic Park - All Media Types
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-12
Updated: 2018-07-24
Packaged: 2019-06-09 02:31:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 14
Words: 38,288
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15257475
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/michie1997/pseuds/michie1997
Summary: Kerri, Ian Malcolm's first ex-wife, is a renowned scientist who is still on good terms with her ex-husband. One day, Ian gets a call for him to go and check out a park off the coast of Costa Rica and decides to bring Kerri along. But Jurassic Park isn't what it's cracked up to be. Ian and Kerri realize what feelings they still have for each other. Ian/OC. Rewrite of Kerri Hensen. This story, and many others, can be found under my fanfiction.net account, oldshowaddict2015





	1. Chapter 1

Chapter One

_1975_

_I sat in the bathroom, wondering what the hell I was doing with my life. Here I am, nineteen years old, about to get married to someone I've known since grade school. This wasn't your ordinary wedding, no. No, this was more of… Eloping because Mom and Dad on both sides don't approve. They liked the guy I was marrying, and his parents liked me. They just didn't like the idea that we were so young._   
_So, what did he say?_   
_Maybe we should just elope._   
_And I was stupid enough to say yes._   
_I leaned on the sink, doing my best not to move—the nerves were beginning to hit me, and with that came the nausea. I splashed some water on my cheeks, careful not to hit my makeup. I looked up, my blonde hair falling in my face. My blue eyes shined with tears—why I was crying, I didn't know—and I quickly wiped them away. My dress was knee length, a light lavender color. My heels were only two inches high, a dull white._   
_I blinked hard, taking in a deep breath and immediately regretting it afterwards. It doesn't matter where it was, public bathrooms always smelled like shit._   
_On my left ring finger sat his class ring—and on his was a piece of twine, since my class ring didn't fit._   
_"Hey, Kerri. You okay in there?" there was a knock on the door. I jumped and looked at it._   
_"Yeah… Just… Just give me a second to collect myself, Ian." I fixed my dress and then looked at myself in the mirror once more, making sure nothing was messed up._   
_"I would, but, uh, I'm pretty sure this guy is going to jump down my throat if we wait any longer."_   
_"Tell him to get over himself, I'm coming."_   
_I heard Ian laugh on the other side of the door. I walked over to it, opening it. Ian's sunglasses covered his eyes, but they had to have been as bright as that smile that was on his face. Ian was a good-looking guy—at least I thought he was. I'd had a crush on him since eighth grade—it wasn't until sophomore year we started dating, and we were always off and on up until junior prom. He had dark hair that reached his shoulders, with dark brown eyes that sparkled when he smiled._   
_"You look beautiful."_   
_I smiled. "You look… Good."_   
_I watched as Ian's dark eyebrows furrowed together. "Good?"_   
_"You'd look better without these." I took the sunglasses off his face. Ian rolled his eyes, crossing his arms._   
_"I like those sunglasses."_   
_"I know you do, but we discussed this, and you said you weren't going to wear them until after. Sunglasses don't look right with a suit."_   
_"Alright, alright, alright."_   
_"Although, in different circumstances, they look great on you." I winked. Ian smiled softly and put his arm around me._

Present Day-1993

The alarm clock rang loudly, waking me up. I looked around before putting my arm across my face for a moment before getting up.  
"Fuck me…" I sighed, going to my closet door and getting my red satin robe off the door handle and putting it on. I hated getting up early, but the life of a scientist didn't really allow you to sleep in.  
I walked over to the window in the dark, knowing my house pretty well after several years. I yanked the curtains to the side and shut my eyes tightly. "Jesus…"  
"Mom?" My daughter, Rhiannon, knocked on the door, leaning her head in a little.  
"Yeah?"  
"Dad's here."  
"Ian?" I looked at her. Rhiannon nodded slowly, her dark bangs—obviously from her father—fell into her face.  
"Yeah, that's the only Dad that Evan and I got."  
"Ha." I walked past her, my pajama pants dragging the ground behind me.  
"Shouldn't you get dressed?" Rhiannon asked.  
"Honey, your father has seen me in less clothing than this. No, I don't think I should get dressed."  
"Jesus, Mom…" she grimaced. I tapped her arm.  
"Don't use the Lord's name in vain."  
"You do it."  
"I'm an exception."  
Behind me, I heard Rhiannon groan (which I'm sure was accompanied by an eye roll).  
"Whatever, Mom. I'm going to take a shower."  
"You have fun with that. Where’s your brother?"  
“Sleeping. As per the usual.” Rhiannon walked into the bathroom.  
I walked into the kitchen, which was attached to the living room, and started to make a pot of coffee. That's when I saw the coffee already made and Ian at the kitchen table, drinking out of a purple coffee cup—which belonged to _me_ —and reading the paper.  
"Morning." I held back a yawn.  
"Hey, Kerri. Nice robe."  
I looked at him. "Is that my paper?"  
"Like you actually read the articles?"  
I walked over and sat at the table next to him. Ian definitely had grown out of his boyhood stage. His hair was shorter, and he looked older, but he still was Ian Malcolm.  
"I want my cup back when you get done with it. Washing included."  
"What, you don't want my cooties?" Ian smirked a bit.  
"No, I just don't like hazelnut creamer. I'm not a weirdo like you."  
Ian laughed quietly, finishing off his coffee and going to wash the cup out for me. I turned to look at him at the sink.  
"What brings you here this early in the morning, Ian?" I asked as the shower started up in the other room, making the pipes creak. As I asked, Ian dried out the cup and poured me a cup.  
"Three French vanilla creamers, like always?" He asked. I nodded. "I got a call from this guy." He answered my question. "He wants me to go check out this... I don't know, I guess it's a park."  
"Did he say what the park was?"  
"All I know is that it's got something to deal with science."  
I furrowed my eyebrows. "So, what does that have to do with me?"  
"That, my darling, has everything to do with you." Ian handed me my coffee, leaning on my dining table. "I want you to come with me." I blinked at him.  
"What?" I stared at him.  
"They need to make sure this park is safe. Apparently, some guy got killed on the job and now there's all this legal bullshit going on and experts are being called to check it out."  
"Okay…"  
"I want you to come with me." He repeated.  
"Why?"  
"Because. You're an expert scientist. You know exactly what you're talking about. I mean, shit, if you wanted, you could find the cure for cancer. I mean, I know that's not your field, but if you tried, you could. You're so smart. You really are. That's why."  
"Thank you." I nodded. "But wouldn't it be awkward for you to be going somewhere with your ex-wife?" I teased him, leaning on my table.  
Ian sat there for a second before shaking his head. "Nope."  
"Alright." I ran a hand through my hair. "Where is this place?"  
"Isla Nublar, about 120 miles off the west coast of Costa Rica. I looked it up."  
I chuckled quietly. "When do we leave?"  
"Get dressed."  
I sat there for a moment, staring at him. "What?"  
"We leave in, like, thirty minutes."  
I shook my head, downing my coffee. "Thanks for the heads up." I scoffed and got up, going to my bedroom.  
"Hey, I didn't really have much warning either. I just thought maybe you'd like to come." Ian followed me, leaning on the open door as I took off my robe.  
"Thirty fucking minutes…" I muttered, digging around in my closet. "Thirty motherfucking minutes…"  
"Just put on jeans and a t-shirt, it's not a big deal." Ian rolled his eyes. "It's not like we're going to church. Jesus…"  
"I just wish you would've given me some more time to get ready. I got to get a shower and everything."  
"Did you take one last night?"  
"Ian don't be stupid."  
"Then you're fine. C'mon, brush your teeth and let's go."  
I sigh and grab a tank top and a pair of shorts, getting dressed. I started to take my top off and looked at Ian, who really wasn't paying attention anyway, but it was still awkward.  
"Do you mind?" I looked at him. Ian snapped out of his thoughts, rolled his eyes and then turned around.  
"Better?"  
"Better." I took my top off, searching for a bra.  
"You know, it's not like I haven't seen everything." Ian put his hands on his hips, waiting.  
"Funny, Ian. Very funny."  
"It's not. It's the truth."  
I got my bra and top on, working on the shorts. I turned my back to the door and sighed quietly. As I was getting them on, a loud wolf whistle broke the silence, making me jump and scream a little. I turned back to him, getting them on and buttoning them.  
"Dammit, Ian!"  
"Like I said, seen it before." Ian was smirking, knowing he had pissed me off, and was enjoying every moment of it. So, really, in some ways he hadn't changed a bit. Fucking jokester. Then again, I did miss him. It wasn't really until now that I realized how much I missed him. Even if it was at this pervy moment. Ian kept smirking, and I felt a blush creep on my cheeks.  
"Aren't you married right now?" I put my hands on my hips, hurrying into the bathroom to hide my face.  
"Nope. No. This is, uh, what you would call an off-period for me." Ian leaned on the door frame.  
"Why doesn't that surprise me…?" I muttered, brushing my teeth. After a minute, I heard Ian speak again.  
"Kerri?"  
"Huh?" I spit out some toothpaste.  
"Did you dye your hair? It looks different."  
"No," I answered before rinsing my mouth out. "I cut it though. I was getting tired of long hair. And I'm too old for it."  
"You're not old, Kerri." I stared at him. Ian shrugged. "You saying you're old means I'm old. Remember, we're the same age."  
"People age differently, you know." I said, walking out and grabbing my tennis shoes, putting them on.  
"That doesn't mean you're old. If you're over 70, you're old. Not 37."  
I rolled my eyes, sitting on my bed.  
"Nikes. Nice." Ian changed the subject.  
"Thanks. They should be, for what I paid for them." I tied my shoes as Ian chuckled, and walked over to the bathroom door. "Rhiannon! Hey!" I knocked on it. Rhiannon opened it a crack, her body covered in a towel. Her brown hair clung to her face and an overwhelming amount of steam and perfume hit us like a car. Ian blinked once because of it, shoving his hands in his pockets and looking around, glancing at old photos on the wall. "Your father and I are going out. We should be back later on tonight. Tell your brother we got leftovers in the fridge for breakfast."  
"How late?" Rhiannon furrowed her eyebrows.  
"I don't know. Ian?" I looked at him. Ian looked at us and shrugged.  
"Pretty late. Maybe midnight."  
Rhiannon started to smirk. "Are you two…?"  
"No!"  
"No way!"  
Our answers were almost said at the same time, making the two of us look at each other.  
"It's just a… Science thing." Ian said.  
"Not a date." I clarified. "We're going to check out some kind of park."  
"Alright." Rhiannon said, in a sing song voice. I put my hands on my hips.  
"We'll be back later. No parties." Ian told her before walking me to the door.  
"No promises." Rhiannon called to us as we left.  
"Be safe, lock the door. Don't answer the phone unless it's me or your mother." Ian told her.  
"Yeah."  
And with that, we left the house.  
[][][][]  
I sat in Ian's car as we drove away from the house. I looked around before looking at him.  
"New car?"  
"Hm?" Ian looked at me before looking back at the road. "Oh, yeah. I got it about a year ago."  
"I like it. It's nice." I nodded.  
He smiled softly. "Well why do you think I got it?"  
"Ha." I rolled my eyes. "Funny."  
We sat in silence as he drove, his dark eyes focused on the road. I looked at him. "So, where are we going?" I raised my eyebrows. Ian looked at me once before looking back at the road.  
"This pilot guy said to meet him at this place, we're going to this island and have to get there by helicopter."  
"You mean like a helipad?" I looked at him. Ian cut his eyes at me.  
"Shut up, I'm tired."  
I laugh. "You and me both." I tapped my fingers on my knees for a moment before looking over at Ian again. “You know, next weekend is your weekend for the kids, right?”  
“Yeah.” Ian nodded.  
“Have fun with Evan’s mood swings.” I looked out the window. “He’s been horrible lately.”  
“Scale of one to ten.”  
“Fifteen.”  
I heard Ian wince quietly beside me. “Well, Kerri, Evan’s 13, he’s going to be going through that kind of stuff.”  
“I know. But, God, first his voice deepens, now this?” I shook my head, looking over at him. “He’s grounded by the way.”  
“For what?”  
“Sneaking out. Or trying to.” I smirked. “But I caught his ass. Now he’s grounded for two weeks.”  
“Well, do the crime, you gotta do the time.”  
I nodded, looking at him. “He’s so much like you, Ian, it worries me. He’s reckless, daring, typically doesn’t care what anyone thinks about him. He’s been in three fights this year.”  
“With who?”  
I tried to hide my smile. “Nathan Windsor.”  
Ian began laughing. “That’s my boy.”  
“Ian.” I smacked him on the arm. “Don’t you praise him. I know his father was a prick, but we don’t know this kid.”  
“He’s a Windsor, need I say more?” I shook my head, looking out the window. “Kerri?”  
“Yeah?”  
“You think Rhi can handle him?”  
“Yeah, of course.” I nodded. “She’s eighteen now. She punched her ex-boyfriend in the face when she found out he cheated on her. Yeah, she can handle him.”  
“She’s lucky I didn’t get my hands on that little jerk.” Ian started to get mad all over again. Rhiannon dated a young kid by the name of Johnny Palmer for a few months in high school, when she was just starting her senior year, but he cheated on her not too long after they got together. Rhiannon found out, punched him and was sent to the principal’s office. Ian and I were called and were told the situation. When Rhiannon explained, it was all we could do to talk Ian out of fighting a 17-year-old for cheating on his daughter.  
A few minutes later, Ian parked the car and the both of us got out. I stared at the helicopter, intimidated by its size. It was blue and white, and on one of the sides it had InGen written in big, bold letters. I took a deep breath and started towards it. The pilot got out, staying next to the door, and greeted us as we approached.  
"Mr. Malcolm, ma'am. Please, get in. Mr. Gennaro is inside waiting for you."  
"Gennaro? What kind of name is that?" I stared at Ian.  
"I said the same thing." He snickered a little.  
"He was the one that called you?"  
"The same." He opened the door for me. "After you, Ms. Hensen."  
I step up into the elevator, Ian after me. Mr. Gennaro, a small, twig of a man wearing a suit jacket, tie and shirt but khaki shorts. I raised an eyebrow at him. He looked surprised at my appearance.  
"You are not Dr. Malcolm." he shook his head.  
"No, I'm his ex-wife." I sat down, crossing my legs. "But I know him well enough to know what he's like. Business and personal." I smirked. Gennaro cleared his throat, obviously uncomfortable.  
"Really, Kerri. Don't go into too much detail. It could hurt his innocent mind." Ian sat next to me and, I'm guessing instinctively, put his arm around me. I bit my lip as the sleeve of his shirt touched the back of my neck. For some odd reason, my neck prickled, and I felt butterflies in my stomach-something I haven't felt in a long time. His cologne made its way around to where I could actually smell it, and it brought back so many memories for me. I was surprised for one of two reasons. One, that he still wore this. Two, that they still made this brand. I didn't care, I loved it.  
"Kerri? Hello?" Ian waved his hand in front of my face.  
"What?" I blinked and looked at him.  
"Please, relieve this guy of his suspicions and tell him you're more than qualified to be here." I could tell he was getting annoyed. His sunglasses had slid down the bridge of his nose and he was now rubbing his eyes. I looked at Gennaro, a smirk on my face.  
"Back off, man." I told him. "I'm a scientist."  
Beside me, Ian started laughing. Gennaro eyed me uneasily.  
"Don't quote at me, Ms. Hensen. I'm not an idiot."  
_Well you act like one_. I resisted the urge to roll my eyes. "I am a scientist, though. World renowned. Trust me, if Ian wanted me to come then it's a good idea."  
"Thank you, Ms. Hensen. You just saved my ass." Ian smirked, sarcasm dripping from his voice. I elbowed him in the ribs, making him wince. "Ow."  
I smirked back at him. "You're welcome, Mr. Malcolm."  
“It’s _Dr. Malcolm_ , okay? I didn’t get a PhD just to be called _Mr. Malcolm_.” He teased me.  
"Do you think John Hammond will be happy about this?" Gennaro snapped.  
"I think he won't mind." Absentmindedly, Ian's hand rubbed my shoulder as he spoke. Jesus Christ, Ian, what's going on here? What are you trying to do me? You know we're in small confines, we can't talk about this in private. _You ass_. I thought to myself.  
"And if he does mind, then he'll have to deal with it." I added, trying to hide shaking in my voice.  
"Damn straight."  
[][][][][]  
We were flying to Montana to pick up three more people, Hammond included. Gennaro had fallen asleep-much to my relief, because he just would not shut up about my being there, even though I tried to tell him I had met John Hammond several times and he would be more than happy to have me here-and had his head on his chest. I looked at Ian, who was looking out the window and the ground below us. His arm was still around me. I couldn't help but keep looking at him. The way the sunlight hit his face, I couldn't help but think about how handsome he was. He noticed me looking at him, and I turned away.  
"Don't act all cool. I know you were staring." Ian smiled at me. I looked at him again.  
"I was trying to look out the window, Ian Malcolm, if you must know."  
"If you say so." His smile turned into a smirk. "But I know you're lying."  
I scoff, trying not to blush. "You're delusional, Ian. Simply delusional."  
"And you, Kerri, are a pathological liar. You know that, and I know that. So just talk to me about what's on your mind."  
Even when we were kids, Ian always had a way of getting things out of me. When we were little, he'd hold my arm behind me, when we were teenagers and young adults, he'd kiss me. Hard. I nodded and sighed.  
"Alright. Why did you want me to come with you?"  
At this, he shrugged. "I just... Didn't want to come alone." He sighed quietly. "I have a bad feeling about this place, Kerri. Something just isn't right." he shook his head.


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter Two

_Flashback-1973-Junior Prom_

_It was prom night. The night every teenage girl would look forward to in her life._

_At least, that's what you're told._

_My dress was tasteful. A V-neck line with a black border and a plain white dress, it showed everything off in all the right places. But it wasn't exactly slutty. My heels were black and only two inches tall._

_It was supposed to be a great night. It's prom. It's supposed to be one of the happiest nights of your life._

_Unless your date is one Joey Windsor and he fucking ditches you in the middle of the dance._

_I stood at the sink in the girls' bathroom, crying my eyes out. Mascara, eyeliner and whatever else that was I had on was running down my face. It made black streaks on my cheeks, and I honestly thought I looked like something out of a kid's nightmare. My hair fell into my face, and I quickly brushed it away, trying to wipe the mascara stains off my face and smearing it more in the process._

_"Fuck..." I whispered. There were a few knocks on the door and I sighed, shaking my head. "It's occupied!" I tried to hold back the sobs._

_"Kerri, open the door."_

_I stared at myself in the mirror, my eyebrows furrowed. "Ian?"_

_"No, Tarzan. Who do you think?"_

_"This is the girls' bathroom, Ian. You're not allowed in here." I rolled my eyes._

_"Watch me."_

_"Ian-" I started, turning. The lock clicked, and Ian opened the door, one of his date's bobby pins in his hand._

_"Hi." He shut the door and locked it again. "Are you okay?" he walked over to me, a look of concern etched on his face._

_"What do you think?" I crossed my arms and looked at him. He wore one of those powder blue suits and white bowties. I looked at his face, and his dark eyes had genuine concern in them._

_"Joey Windsor?"_

_I nodded mutely. He sighed and shook his head._

_"I tried to warn you." he began to scold. I scoff._

_"Please. Like you would've taken me instead of Julianne Harper to the prom anyway." I shook my head and messed with my corsage, wanting to take it off and burn it._

_"I would've."_

_"Don't lie to make me feel better."_

_His hand gently cupped my face and had me face him. For once in his life, Ian Malcolm was serious. As serious as a fucking heart attack. "I would've."_

_"Then why did you take her...?"_

_"Because..." he shrugged. "I wanted to make you jealous. That and she wouldn't leave me alone about it."_

_"You wanted to make me jealous? Come_ on _, Ian. Don't-"_

_He shut me up by crashing his lips to mine._

_Present Day-1993_

We landed and picked up two more scientists along with Hammond. They got into the helicopter the best they could with the limited space. One was a young, blonde woman who wore a salmon colored button up shirt, khakis, hiking boots and either a dark purple or blue undershirt, I wasn’t sure of which color. The other was a man, who was pretty quiet when he got on here. He wore a blue button up shirt similar to the woman's, khakis and the same kind of boots. On his head, he wore a hat-I'm sure it was to keep the sun out of his eyes. In his hand he had some type of claw. It was large, had to be from a dinosaur-a carnivore no less.  
Hammond was dressed in all white and now had a cane he walked with. On his face sat round glasses and a white, very well-kept beard. I couldn't exactly make out what the top of the cane was made of yet, but I was really curious.

"Ian, how are you?" Hammond greeted him. "Kerri, how nice to see you again." he smiled at me, shaking my hand for a moment. I smiled back at him.

"Nice to see you too, Mr. Hammond."

"This is a pleasant surprise." As he said this, I smirked at Gennaro, who rolled his eyes. "I have with me two top scientists in their field. This is Dr. Ellie Sattler, a paleobotanist, and Dr. Alan Grant, a paleontologist."

"Nice to meet you." I smiled kindly at them.

"Hi." Ellie smiled at me, while Grant nodded his head. There were a lot of things I wanted to know-this field has always interested me-but I kept my questions to myself. Ian, however, didn't.

"So, you two dig up-dig up dinosaurs?" he asked. The woman laughed.

"Well..." she started.

"We try to." the man said quietly. Ian chuckled oddly, like he was trying to force it out but at the same time he wasn't. The man and woman looked at each other, the woman trying not to laugh any more than she already has. Hammond looked at them.

"You'll have to get used to Dr. Malcolm. He suffers from a deplorable excess of personality." He looked at Ian. "Especially for a mathematician."

" _Chaotician_. Chaotician, actually." Ian corrected him.

"Same thing." I smirked, knowing this would set him off.

"It is not the same thing, Kerri. Chaos Theory and math have absolutely nothing to do with each other."

"I beg to differ." I giggle.

Ian rolled his eyes at me, hiding a smile. "John doesn't subscribe to chaos. Particularly of what it says about his science project."

"Codswallop, Ian, you've never been able to sufficiently explain your concerns." Hammond said.

"Because of the behavior of the system in phase space?"

"A load, if I may say some of fashionable, number crunching-" Ian placed his hand on Hammond's knee and squeezed it lightly, making Hammond smack his hand and move it away. "Don't! You promised you wouldn't do that!"

Ian ignored him. "Dr. Sattler, Dr. Grant, you've heard of Chaos Theory?"

"Here he goes." I whispered. Ian placed a hand on my knee, squeezing it like he did Hammond. I let out squeal of laughter before smacking his arm. "That's not nice!'

"Who said I was nice?" Ian looked at me. I laughed quietly. He turned back to the other two scientists. Ellie was shaking her head, trying to hide a smile.

"No."

This took my ex-husband by surprise. "No? Non-linear equations? Strange attractions?" He cocked his head a little. "Dr. Sattler, I refuse to believe that you aren't familiar with the concept of attraction."

At this, Dr. Sattler smiled and turned her head. I stared at Ian for a moment before biting my lip and looking around. Jealousy began to bubble up inside of me. Maybe Sattler wasn't as pretty as I originally thought she was. Hammond chuckled at her reaction.

"I bring scientists, you bring a rock star." He said to Gennaro. Gennaro went to retort but Hammond's expression of, what I thought, excitement cut him off. He pointed out the window opposite of him. "There it is." he grinned.

There were plants and other foliage on either side of us on the mountains. It truly was beautiful.

"Bad wind shears. We have to drop pretty fast. So, hold on. This will be a little thrilling." Hammond told us. Right after that, we felt a jerk and the whole helicopter bounced up and down. I squeaked and grabbed on to my seat, beginning to white knuckle it a bit. "Yahoo!" the older man exclaimed before laughing. We all began to put our seatbelts on. Mine was caught on one of my belt loops and it took me a moment to get it free.

"Need some help?" Ian offered.

"No!" I told him, and it came out harsher than expected. Ian put his on before making a cat like noise and hissing at me. I glared at him as I buckled my seatbelt. Dr. Grant seemed to be in a dilemma, though. After we had all of ours buckled, he had found his had two of the same thing. He stared at it for a moment before putting them together a couple of times, trying to see if it would work. Hammond reached over, trying to help.

"But you need that piece over here, and that piece... Look, we'll have landed by the time you get it right."

Alan tied the seatbelt together. "Great..." He muttered. We landed, and Hammond was the first person out. Gennaro was second, looking as if he might throw up. Alan and Sattler were next, and I after them, leaving Ian in the dust to get out by himself. A couple of Jeeps backed up to where we were as I looked around. This place was like its own little world. It was absolutely beautiful.

Little did I know.

_1973_

_The Monday after prom was eventful. And I mean_ eventful.

_I was known as "The Sobbing Girl" that night who was "not in her right mind to keep Ian Malcolm away from his date all night" and on many accounts of what had happened I had "lured Ian into the girls' bathroom to have sex" so that I wouldn't be "the only virgin left in school"._

_I hate idiots._

_Not to mention, Joey Windsor was being even more of an asshole than usual. He gave me smirks here and there and when he saw me with Ian, he'd do a sex motion with his hands or mime a blowjob being done. It pissed Ian off to no end-and trust me, I wasn't a happy camper about it either-and I had to stop him from getting in a fight more than once._

_"Just one. Just one punch. I'll stop after that. Just one punch." he pleaded to me after American History class. I shook my head._

_"Ian, you'll just get waist deep in shit. It's better to just let it drop. We have only a month or so of school left. Just drop it."_

_"I can't drop it when I, ah, when I see his face smirking at me across the classroom."_

_"Ian." I crossed my arms and leaned on the lockers. "Just... Don't. For me. Please?"_

_With a sigh and a nod, Ian agreed. "Alright. Alright. For you. But you know there's-there's no guarantees."_

_"With you, Ian Malcolm, there never is." I smiled softly._

_That promise lasted until his chemistry class. It was the last period of the day, though it hadn't started. I had algebra class that was set across the hall and started my way inside when people started to flock to the middle of the hall. I looked around, setting my stuff down and following the crowd. In the middle was a shock of dark hair and bright blonde hair. I felt a pit in my stomach when I realized who it was._

_"God dammit, Ian." I muttered under my breath._

_I saw Ian give Joey a quick bloody nose, sending the popular kid into the lockers with a loud clang. Ian stood upright, his clothes torn and a scratch on his right cheek-obviously made by Joey's class ring-and his hair disshelved. Joey gawked at him for a moment, stunned, wondering how this tall and lanky kid could have broken his nose and knocked him into the lockers with such force. I wouldn't have doubted Ian for a second in a fight-he always kicked my ass at arm wrestling-but other kids at school obviously did. They had no idea how strong Ian really was._

_While the cheers and cries of people wanting more from the fight got louder and louder and the faculty of the school making their way down the hall, I pushed my way through the crowd, grabbed Ian by his t-shirt and dragged him away and into the chemistry class._

_"Are you fucking kidding me?" I shut the door. A boy sat in the far corner of the room, beginning to listen to our conversation. I gave him the evil eye. "Out. This is private."_  
_This kid didn't hesitate twice and made his way out of the class. "Go. Lean on the counter by the sink, I'm going to clean you up."_

_"I'm a big boy, I can take care of myself." Ian snapped, but doing what he was told to do anyway._

_"Obviously not. I told you not to fight. And what did you do? You got into a fight." I followed him, yanking a piece of a brown paper towel off the roll before wetting it. "Do you know how stupid that is? In a week's time, at least, everyone would've forgotten about it."_

_"How do you know?" Ian held his right cheek. It was obvious he was going to be sore tomorrow, maybe even have a bruise._

_"Ian." I looked at him, gently moving his hand and pressing the wet cloth to the scratch he had received during the fight. "Look around you. This whole school has idiots inside of its walls. We are completely surrounded by idiots." I cleaned out his wound. He hissed a little at the pain-after all, most small scratches sting more than the big ones, depending on how you got them._

_"I can believe that." he sighed quietly. I shook my head._

_"Why did you get in a fight?" I threw the cloth unceremoniously on the counter. "I mean, there had to be some reason."_

_"He pissed me off, isn't that reason enough?" Ian crossed his arms._

_"Nope." I shook my head. He sighed, not looking at me. I poked his arm, making him look at me. "Give me the real reason. Not some bullshit you just came up with."_

_"He..." Ian rubbed the back of his neck, not meeting my eyes. "He kept saying shit about you."_

_"Like what?" I pressed._

_"Like how you were a born-again whore who would stop at nothing to get what she wanted. How you were the one who abandoned him at prom instead of him leaving you." I stared at him._

_"Are you fucking kidding me?"_

_"I overheard him, so no-no, I'm not."_

_"What a motherfucking crock of_ shit _!" I yelled, getting angry. I was about ready to go punch him out myself._

_"That's what I said." Ian sighed quietly. "So, I defended you. He had no right to say what he did. I felt like I should've done something." he paused for a moment, shrugging. "So, I did."_

_I smiled a bit. "Ian?"_

_"What?" He returned my smile._

_"You're a fucking idiot, you know, that right?"_

_He laughed. "Yeah. Yeah, I know."_

The helicopter flew away as we drove into the park. Ian, Alan, Ellie and I were in one Jeep, Gennaro and Hammond were in the other. I looked around.

"This place is beautiful..." I breathed. Sattler furrowed her eyebrows, snatching a leaf and holding it in her hands. We made it to an open meadow before stopping.

"This shouldn't be here..." I heard the blonde scientist say to herself.

"Look at this place, Ian," my anger towards him gone. "God damn, it's beautiful. It's like it's untouched by man, somehow, you know? Like-ow!" Ian smacked me on the arm. "What?"

"Look." he said, with a surprised look on his face. I turned and looked. My mouth dropped open.

"Oh, my sweet baby Jesus..." I muttered as Alan stood and yanked off his aviator sunglasses.

"Alan, this species of Veriforman has been extinct since the Cretaceous Period. I mean, this thing..." Sattler stopped rambling about that leaf when Alan grabbed her head and turned it. "What?"

And that was when the realization dawned on her face. Her mouth dropped open and she, too, took off her sunglasses and stood.

A Brachiosaurus walked past us, bellowing as it reached for a branch on a tree. Both Sattler and Alan got out of the Jeep and walked to it. A chuckling Hammond followed them.

"You did it." Ian muttered. "Crazy son of a bitch, you did it."

I stared at him. "You knew about this?" I asked.

"I only knew he was looking for DNA for some science experiment. I never knew it was going to amount to... This."

The dino bellowed again before standing on its hind legs to reach higher leaves. It fell back forward, and the ground shook slightly.

"This is... This is amazing..." I said quietly. "It's like being back in all those eras. Seeing these dinosaurs and how they interact... I love it..." I grinned. Ian looked at me. I didn't notice. I was still gawking at this beautiful prehistoric animal.

 

 


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter Three

We drove up to the main building, which still had parts being worked on. The majority of it was finished. The walls were white with 'dinosaur bones' and straw above the door to make it more exciting. The door was black and brown, with curved handles that you used to open it with. You had to walk up a few steps to get to it, though.

We walked up, and the doors seemed to open by themselves (but obviously someone had to have been behind them because doors opening by themselves that  _weren't_ automatic just weren't a thing).

"Good day, good day." John greeted the invisible door openers. When we walked inside, we were greeted by a large T-Rex skeleton with a banner above it, saying "When Dinosaurs Ruled the Earth", all in capital letters. "The most advanced amusement park in the entire world, incorporating all the latest technologies. And I'm not talking just about rides. Everybody has rides." He continued as we reached a flight of stairs. How Hammond could get up all these stairs and not get winded was beyond me- _especially_ since he had a cane. I had to face the facts. A man old enough to be my father was in better shape than I was, and that was some bullshit. I quietly put a reminder in the back of my head to start running more often. "No, we've made living biological attractions so astounding that they'll capture the imagination of the entire planet."

"So, what're you thinking?" Ellie asked as Alan scratched his head. Alan looked back at her.

"That we're out of a job."

Ian jogged up to them and leaned over a bit. "Don't you mean 'extinct'?" He teased before jogging up the rest of the stairs. Ellie smiled but I think Alan didn't appreciate that remark very much. Once we reached the top, I had to stop. I shook my head.  _This is ridiculous_ , I scolded myself.  _How can you be_ this  _out of shape? You haven't worked out in... Six years._ I raised an eyebrow.  _Well that's why_.

"Ms. Hensen, we don't have all day." Ian crossed his arms, peering at me over his dark sunglasses.

"Ian..." I walked over to him. "Take your sarcastic comments and shove them where the sun doesn't shine." I crossed my arms. In another room, I heard Ellie stifle a laugh. I walked into the room, Ian behind me.

"That's a little harsh." he said. I looked back at him and stuck my tongue out before walking to a few rows of seats, almost like a movie theater.

"Why don't you all sit down? Donald, sit down." John said politely. We did as told, Ellie, Alan, Ian, and I sitting a few rows in front of Donald. I sat at the end, with Ian to my right. To the right of him were Alan and Ellie. "Ah, here he comes." John walked to the screen as John walked up to us.

Wait, what?

This John, on-screen John that is, was wearing a suit with his hair and beard all nice and neat. "Well, here  _I_ come."

" _Hello_." On-screen John greeted us.

"Say hello, say hello!" John told us. I looked around before awkwardly waving to the on-screen John. Ian gave a wave, while everyone else gave quiet 'hello's.

" _Hello, John_." On-screen John greeted Hammond. Almost immediately after, John began digging in his pockets.

"Oh, yes, I've got lines..." He said quietly.

_Lines_?

" _Well, fine, fine, I guess. But, how did I get here?_ " On-screen John asked.

"Well, let me show you. First, I'll need a drop of blood.  _Your_ blood." John held his hand out, pretending to hold something in it. The on-screen John held out a finger.

" _Right_." Not five seconds later, a pricking sound was made, and on-screen John looked at Hammond. " _John, that hurt_."

"Relax, John, it's all part of the miracle of cloning." Hammond explained. A second John appeared on-screen.

" _Hello, John_." said on-screen John number two.

" _Hello, John_." the first one greeted, smiling. A third one appeared. " _Hello_."

" _Hello_."

"Cloned from what?" Alan whispered. The four of us all leaned in and started talking. "Loy extractions never recreated an intact DNA strand."

"Not without massive sequence gaps." Ian explained.

"And the gaps are so huge that what would be the point? The clone wouldn't even exist, hardly." I whispered.

"Right, exactly."

"Paleo-DNA, from what source?" Ellie asked. "Where do you get 100 million-year-old dinosaur blood?"

"Shh!" the lawyer snapped. _Bitch, I will fight you_ , I thought. On the screen, on-screen John watched as what seemed like little bubbles float up from his finger and form a DNA strand. It went and poked his other shoulder.

" _What? What_?" One on-screen John watched with a look of surprise on his face while the other seemed to kind of chuckle. " _Oh, well, Mr. DNA, where did you come from?_ " he asked.

" _From your blood_!" DNA answered him. " _Just one drop of your blood contains billions of strands of DNA, the building blocks of life_." the screen changed to a blueprint background as Mr. DNA made his way through the small creases. " _A DNA strand, like me, is a blueprint for building a living thing._ " He made himself into a dinosaur. " _And sometimes animals that went extinct millions of years ago, like dinosaurs, left their blueprints behind for us to find. We just had to know where to look_."

I chuckled. The way the guy said 'dinosaurs' made me smirk. I leaned over to Ian and whispered "Dinosaurs." just like DNA had said it. This made him stifle a laugh. The blueprint screen rolled away, showing what seemed to be skin with an animated mosquito taking a bite out of it and filling itself with blood.

" _A hundred million years ago, there were mosquitoes just like today_."

"Too bad they didn't go extinct." I muttered.

" _And, just like today, they fed on the blood of animals. Even dinosaurs. Sometimes, after biting a dinosaur, a mosquito would land on the branch of a tree and get stuck in the sap_." It showed tree sap enveloping a mosquito and I raised my eyebrows. Then it went to an animation of scientists digging. " _After a long time, the tree sap would get hard and become fossilized, just like a dinosaur bone, preserving the mosquito inside. This fossilized tree sap, which we call amber, waited for millions of years with the mosquito inside until Jurassic Park scientists came along. Using sophisticated techniques, they extract the preserved blood from the mosquito and bingo! Dino DNA! A full DNA strand contains three billion genetic codes."_ The screen changed to letters just flying around with the DNA in front of it. " _If we looked at screens like these once a second for eight hours a day, it'd take two years to look at the entire DNA strand. It's_ that  _long_.  _So-So!"_ DNA was hit by letters and they shoved him off-screen for half a second before he reappeared. " _What if it's full of holes? Now_ that's  _where our geneticists take over. Thinking machine super-computers and gene sequencers break down the strand in minutes. And virtual-reality displays show our geneticists the gaps in the DNA sequence._ " it showed a yellow frog croaking on-screen with a purple background. " _We used the complete DNA of a frog._ " it then went to a blue screen and turned the frog into DNA strands. " _To fill in the holes and complete the code_!" DNA shoved a piece of strand to fill a hole.  _"Whew! And now, we can make a baby dinosaur_." the screen changed to an egg hatching and quickly turning into an adult dinosaur.

"This score is only temporary." Hammond explained. "It all has very dramatic music, of course. Boom, boom, boom, boom-a march or something. It hasn't been written yet. And then, of course, the tour moves on." He hit a button and then handles in front of us went down into our laps, much like a roller coaster. We started moving and we saw a window with scientists, all wearing white jumpsuits. DNA was talking but I wasn't paying attention. Not at this point. Ellie and Alan were like kids in a candy store, they were so excited. Behind us, John and Donald were talking in the back.

"This is overwhelming, John." Donald spoke quietly. "Are these characters autoerotica?"

At this I stared back at the lawyer.  _What kind of sick fantasies you got_? I thought.

"No, no, no, we have no animatronics here." John corrected him. "Those people are the real miracle workers of Jurassic Park."

"Wait a minute," Alan started, his arm outstretched. It made me turn to look at him. "How do you interrupt the cellular mitosis?"

"Can't we see the unfertilized eggs?" Ellie looked back at Hammond.

"Shortly, shortly." He told her.

"Can't you stop these things?" Alan asked.

"I'm sorry, it's kind a ride."

"One, two, three." Ian began to lift the bars, the rest of us doing the same (besides Hammond and the lawyer, of course). Then the four of us got up and started to leave.

"Can they do that?" the lawyer asked as he and Hammond followed us.

_1974_

_Sitting in a fast food restaurant wouldn't be your 'ideal' date night, but hey, it was pretty good, considering how much he was paid an hour. Besides, I didn't mind. A few kids from school glanced over at us as I sipped my Coke. Joey Windsor, who would now looked at Ian with fear in his eyes, looked away as his cheerleader girlfriend glared at me. I smiled and waved before looking at Ian, who was smirking._

_"You, ah, think they're too high and mighty to be in here?" He muttered._

_"They'll get over it. I hear Joey's having a party tonight. It should elevate his ego even more."_

_Ian chuckled quietly. I tossed a fry into my mouth, smirking over at the popular kids again as they moved to a table._

_"I gotta show you something." Ian opened his white and orange cup, the ice bobbing a bit. Ian was big on not drinking too many sodas, he really only had one a day. The rest of the time he would drink water or orange juice. Rarely did he have two a day. Me, I drank as many as I wanted. I didn't care. He scolded me from time to time, but I ignored him, usually sipping my soda as I flipped him off. I'd have a Dr. Pepper in the day and as the day went on I gradually moved to Coke. I didn't care._

_"What is it?" I watched as he dipped his fingertip into his cup._

_"I just found something out. Give me your hand."_

_I stared at him but did as told. He took my hand in his before looking at me, his face serious._

_"A little water droplet will not roll off your hand the same way twice." He told me. I blinked._

_"Huh?" This was the big thing. A water droplet?_

_"Watch." he lightly touched my hand with the finger he had dipped in the water, and the droplet quickly slid off the right side of my hand. "Alright, so it went to the right first, right?"_

_"Ah, yeah." I nodded._

_"Alright. Where do you think it'll go this time?"_

_Here comes the scientist in him. I shrugged. "Same way I guess."_

_"Watch." he said again, tapping my hand in the same spot. I watched the droplet as it slid down my hand and my wrist, sliding down my arm. Ian smirked at me as I stared at him. "See? I was right."_

_"But why?"_

_"Because I'm always right."_

_I thinned my lips a little, making him chuckle. "I meant the water thing, ya doof."_

_"I know." He smirked a bit, before taking my hand in both of his. "Because microscopic indifferences in the, ah, skin make it happen. It can't go the same way twice, it's just not possible."_

_"Huh." I looked at my hand. Already the water streaks were beginning to dry._

_"You can try and predict which way it's going to go, but half the time you're right, half the time you're wrong."_

_"It's like that with everything, really." I shrugged._

_"Good point." He smiled a bit. I nodded. Before I knew it, he leaned over the table and kissed me, making me blush deeply. When we pulled away, he sat back down, keeping my hand in his. "Bet you didn't predict that, did you?"_

_1993_

We hurried into the lab, impatient. Dino eggs.  _Real, actual dino eggs._  How many times can you see this in your life? I mean honestly.

" _A reminder,_ " A man's voice came over the PA system. " _The boat for the mainland will be leaving at 1900 hours. All personnel be at the dock no later than 1845. No exceptions._ "

"Someone's strict." I muttered.

"Good day, Henry." Hammond greeted a man once we reached the bottom of the small staircase. Henry turned, a clipboard and pencil in his hand. His hair was black, and he was oriental. Now, whether he was Chinese, Japanese, Korean, or anything else was beyond me. He smiled a bit.

"Good day, sir." he turned back to his clipboard and erased something. We wore a white lab suit, with gloves on his hands. How I hated those gloves. But they were for protection. Protocol. Gotta wear them.

A machine whizzed not too far from us, and both Alan and Ellie made their way over. I looked over and my mouth dropped open, hurrying to see. I stood next to Alan, a hand over my mouth. Ian stood next to me, his hand on my waist for a moment before he put it back by his side. I couldn't help but feel a tingle.

This machine was turning eggs over, one by one. The eggs were in a handmade nest, and they were fairly large. It surprised me, how big they were.

"It's turning the eggs." Ellie said quietly. One egg began to shake, and Ian pointed it out. We got closer, wanting to see.

"Oh, perfect timing." Henry walked up to us. "I'd hoped they'd hatch before I had to go to the boat."

"Henry, Henry, Henry, why didn't you tell me!" Hammond exclaimed quietly, putting gloves on. "I insist on being here when they're born." He leaned in as the egg began cracking. "Come on... Come on." he urged the baby dinosaur. "Come on, little one." he laughed gleefully as the egg began to break more. "Come on. Come on, little one, come on." the egg cracked more, this time a big chunk breaking off and revealing some red gunk and the eye of the baby. "Very good, push. Push." we saw more of the face, and by the little sharp teeth, this was a carnivore. Still, it was still a sight to see.

"God..." Ellie said quietly. I looked at Ian, who smiled at me before we both looked back at the hatching.

"Push, come on." Hammond continued to urge as the baby brought out a claw. My mouth dropped open. "Come on." he started laughing again. "Come on, then." he took an egg piece off the baby's head. "There you are." he did it a few more times as the baby dinosaur squealed quietly.

"Oh my God, that's so cute." I whispered.

"Yeah. Cute." Ian spoke quietly. But in his voice, I could hear he wasn't the happy camper he seemed to be.

"They imprint on the first creature they come in contact with." Hammond explained. At this, Alan's eyes widened, and he pointed at himself. "That's it." he said as the baby got out a little more. "Helps them to trust me. I've been present for the birth of every little creature on this island."

"Surely not the ones that have bred in the wild?" Ian asked.

"Actually, they can't breed in the wild." Henry explained. I furrowed my eyebrows. "Population control is one of our security precautions. There's no unauthorized breeding in Jurassic Park."

"How do you know they can't breed?" Ian asked.

"Because all of the animals in Jurassic Park are female. We've engineered them that way."

"Oh my God, look at that." Ellie exclaimed quietly. I looked at the baby, halfway out of its egg, squealing every now and again. Ian walked to the other side of the incubator.

"Blood temperature seems like about high 80s, maybe." Alan spoke.

"Wu?" Hammond looked at Henry, who was now passing out those gloves.

"Ah, ninety-one." he answered.

"Homoeothermic? It holds that temperature?" Ellie asked.

"Yes."

Alan held the broken egg in his hands, and the machine quickly snatched it from him. The wide-eyed look he got made me giggle.

"But again," Ian spoke, his voice directly behind me. "How do you know they're all female? What, does somebody go out in the park and pull up the dinosaurs' skirts?"

"We control their chromosomes." Henry crossed his arms. "It's really not that difficult. All vertebrate embryos are inherently female, anyway." I smirked at Ian, who was going to sit down. "They just require an extra hormone given at the right developmental stage to make them male."

"See? Don't feel special." I teased. Ian made a face at me.

"We simply deny them that." Henry added.

"Deny them that?" Ellie raised her eyebrows as Alan put the gloves on.

"John, the kind of control you're attempting is not possible." Ian shook his head. "If there's one thing the history of evolution has taught us, it's that life will not be contained. Life breaks free. Expands to new territories, and crashes through barriers, painfully, maybe even dangerously, but, uh..." he motioned to the baby dinosaur. "Well, there it is."

"There it is." Hammond nodded.

"You're implying that a group composed entirely of female animals will... _breed_?" Henry checked something off the clipboard as he spoke.

"No. No, I'm simply saying that life, uh, finds a way."

The baby dinosaur, which Alan was now holding, whimpered again.

"What species is this?" he asked Henry.

"Uh," Henry looked up from his clipboard. "It's a Velociraptor."

"You bred Raptors?"

 

 


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter Four

_1975_

_I snuck into my house, looking around the dark living room. I looked back at Ian, who was glancing around as well._

_“The coast is clear,” I whispered to him. He came in quietly, shutting the door behind him. As he did, the kitchen light turned on and my mother, who looked extremely pissed off, was standing there. Her arms were crossed and her brown hair, which had a bit of grey in it, was up in a messy bun. She wore her old blue robe that she’s had since before I was born, with light pink slippers that never matched—then again, my mother never cared, it was house clothes. It wasn’t a big deal to her. She glanced at Ian before locking her gaze on to me, and I had to do everything to not visibly cringe._

_“It is three in the morning.” She said slowly, almost dangerously._

_“I know, I’m sorry.” I said quietly. Mom shifted her gaze to Ian._

_“Ian, your mother is worried sick about you. She’s been calling here and all around the neighborhood all day. Almost went to the police about you being gone.”_

_“I’m sorry, Mrs. Hansen, Kerri and I didn’t intend to be out this late.” Ian nervously rubbed the back of his neck. Mom kept her gaze on him for a moment before looking at me._

_“What in the world were you two doing that kept you out until 3:30 this morning?”_

_“We, uh…” Ian shifted from foot to foot as I didn’t look at my mother. I grasped his hand in mine, biting my lip._

_“We were just out and lost track of time.” I looked at the TV set, staring at myself in the dark screen._ You liar _, I chided myself._

_“You didn’t think to call? You never went by a payphone?”_

_“We did.” I said quietly. “We just didn’t think about it.”_

_“I see.” Mom nodded, walking over to us. “You’re lucky your father is on a business trip right now, Kerri. Otherwise you’d be getting it worse than you are now.”_

_“I know.”_

_I heard Mom sigh and saw her shaking her head out of the corner of my eye._

_“Where did you two go?” She asked quietly. I glanced at Ian nervously, who shook his head._

_“She’s going to find out sooner or later, we should just tell her now.” He said. I nodded before looking back at my mother._

_“Mom… uh, Ian and I, we um…” Before I could finish, Ian spoke up._

_“We snuck off to get married.” My mother opened her mouth to say something, but Ian cut her off. “I know how you feel about this, Mrs. Hansen, and believe me, I understand. But I want you to know, I love Kerri. And, uh, I’m going to do all I can to-to make her happy.”_

_Mom cupped his cheek gently before crossing her arms again. “I know that, Ian, I just wish you two had waited a few years, got college out of the way. I know how you two feel, but marriage is no cakewalk. There will be ups and downs. There will be fights. And, possibly, children. And children aren’t easy either. I just want you two to be happy.”_

_“Oh, trust me,” I nodded. “We are.”_

_Mom sighed before shaking her head. “Oh my God,” she whispered quietly, tears forming in her eyes. “My baby got married and I wasn’t even there.”_

_“Mom, we were thinking about a ceremony in a couple weeks, we just have to save up for it.” I said, hoping to not make her cry so much. “If it makes you feel any better, I didn’t really wear a wedding dress, just an old church dress.”_

_“Yeah, and I just wore a suit I bought at a cheap store, you didn’t miss anything.” Ian said, trying to help. My Mom laughed quietly, though she was still crying a bit._

_“You two…” she smiled a bit and I hugged her._

_“Dad’ll be home in time to make it, right?”_

_“Yes, he’s going to be home Wednesday.” Mom wiped her eyes, looking at me and cupping my cheeks._

_“My baby girl got herself married…” she smiled a bit as Ian put an arm around my shoulders._

1993

“Dr. Grant, as I was saying, we laid out lunch for you before you set out into the park.” John Hammond and the rest of us caught up with Alan, who was currently looking at one of the park enclosures with his hands on his hips. “Our gourmet chef, Alejandro—”

“What are they doing?” Alan asked.

A loud clanking noise was heard, and soon we saw a cow lifted up on some kind of contraption with a harness above the enclosure. “Oh. Feeding them.” Hammond answered simply. After that, he continued what he was saying earlier. “Alejandro’s, uh, prepared a delightful menu for us. Chilean sea bass, I believe. Uh, shall we?”

Alan didn’t answer him, and instead started up towards the enclosure. The rest of us soon followed him. We looked inside, but couldn’t see much, save for a lot of vegetation that shook constantly. Soon after, we heard the cow shrieking in pain as roaring soon overtook it as the cow was, presumably, ripped to pieces. I covered my ears and buried my face into Ian’s shoulder. I couldn’t stand it. I felt his arms gently hold me as I buried into him.

“They should all be destroyed.” A man walked up to us, wearing a safari uniform. Hammond laughed.

“Robert. Robert Muldoon, my game warden from Kenya.” He introduced us. “Bit of an alarmist, I’m afraid, but knows more about raptors than anyone.”

Automatically, Alan was asking Robert questions about the raptors. “What kind of metabolism do they have? What’s their growth rate?”

“They’re lethal at eight months.” Muldoon told him. “And I do mean _lethal_. I’ve hunted most things that can hunt you, but the way these things move—”

“Fast for a biped?”

“Cheetah speed. Fifty, sixty miles per hour, if they ever got out into the open. And they’re astonishing jumpers.”

“Yes, yes, yes, yes.” Hammond raised a hand to silence Muldoon. “That’s why we’re taking extreme precautions.” He turned to Ellie. “The viewing area is set below here,” he started as Alan spoke to Muldoon again.

“Do they show intelligence? With their brain cavities—”

“They’re extremely intelligent. Even problem-solving intelligence—especially the big one. We bred eight, originally, but when she came in, she took over the pride… and killed all but two of the others. That one… When she looks at you, you can see she’s working things out. That’s why we have to feed them like this. She had them all attacking the fences when the feeders came.”

“The fences are electrified, though, right?” Ellie asked.

“That’s right, but they never attack the same place twice. They were testing the fences for weaknesses systematically. They remember.”

The contraption began to come back up, the harness and the metal holding it together was broken and shredded to pieces. I shook my head, leaving Ian’s side.

“Yes, well,” Hammond said, smiling. “Who’s hungry?”

[][][][]

In the dining room, there were pictures and videos all around us for us to look at as we dined. Hammond’s recorded voice could be heard throughout.

“ _More adventurous guests can opt for our jungle river cruise_ , _or for a close-up look at our majestic winged dinosaurs—_ ” I heard the voice say. I rolled my eyes. Oh, yes, Hammond, excellent idea.

“None of these attractions are ready yet, of course,” Hammond said to us. “But the park will open with the basic tour you’re about to take. And then other rides will come online six or twelve months after that. Absolutely _spectacular_ designs. Spared no expense.”

“And, we can charge anything we want,” the lawyer added. “2,000 a day, 10,000 a day. And _people will pay it_. And then there’s the merchandise. I can personally—”

“Donald, Donald,” Hammond cut him off. “This park was not built to cater only for the super-rich. Everyone in the world has the right to enjoy these animals.”

“Sure, they will.” Donald said, albeit annoyed. “We’ll have, uh, a coupon day or something.”

Hammond laughed quietly. I rolled my eyes. I wanted to know how the hell this guy actually passed law school. I saw Ian grimace and shake his head.

“Gee, the lack of humility before nature that’s being displayed here, um, staggers me.” He said. I sat up a bit, getting ready for what I could assume to be a fight. Whether it was large or small, time would tell.

“Well, thank you, Dr. Malcolm, but I think things are a little bit different than you and I had feared.” The lawyer said, still annoyed.

“Yeah, I know. They’re a lot worse.”

“Now, wait a second… Now we haven’t even seen the park yet and you—”

“No, Donald, Donald.” Hammond cut him off. “Donald, let him talk. I want to hear every viewpoint. I really do.”

“God, it’s like managing an argument between my kids,” I muttered. Donald pouted a bit.

“Yeah,” Ian spoke again. “Don’t you see the danger, uh, John, inherent in what you’re doing here? Genetic power’s the most awesome force the planet’s ever seen, but you wield it like a-a kid that’s found his Dad’s gun.”

“It’s hardly appropriate to start hurling generalizations—” Donald started up again, getting ready for a fight.

“Donald. I know it’s in your nature to argue because you’re a lawyer, but you need to shut your mouth for a moment.” I snapped at him. Ian shook his head, placing a hand on mine for a second and stammering a bit.

“I-I-If I may,” he stammered. “Um, I’ll tell you the problem with the scientific power that you’re using here. Uh, it didn’t acquire any discipline to attain it. You know, you read what others had done, and you-and you took the next step.” He shrugged. “You didn’t earn the knowledge for yourselves, so you don’t take any responsibility… for it.” At this, Hammond shook his head, obviously disagreeing with him, and began to motion for Ian to be quiet so he could speak. It didn’t work. “You stood on the shoulders of geniuses, uh, to accomplish something as fast as you could, and before you even _knew_ what you had, you-you patented it, and packaged it, and slapped it on a plastic lunch box. And now—” Ian banged on the table. “You’re selling it.” He banged again. “You wanna sell it. Well—”

“I-I don’t think you’re giving us our due credit.” John Hammond argued. His voice was calm, but I could tell he didn’t like what Ian had to say. Not at all. “Our scientists have done things which nobody’s ever done before.”

“Yeah, yeah, but your scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they _could_ , they didn’t stop to think if they _should_.” Ian argued back.

“Condors.” John pointed, as if to make his statement more powerful. “Condors are on the verge of extinction—”

“—No—” Ian shook his head.

“—If I was to—No, no, if I was to create a flock of condors on this island, _you_ wouldn’t have anything to say.” John, satisfied with his point, looked at Ian for a response, which he readily received.

“No, hold on. This isn’t-this isn’t some species that was obliterated by deforestation… or-or the building of a dam. Dinosaurs, uh, uh, had their shot, and nature _selected_ them for extinction.”

Hammond shook his head, utterly amazed at Ian’s mindset. “I simply don’t understand this Luddite attitude, especially from a scientist. I mean, how can we stand in the light of discovery, and… and not act?”

“Oh, what’s so great about discovery? It’s a violent, penetrative act that scars what it explores. What you call discovery, I call the rape of the natural world.”

Finally, someone else threw their hat into the ring.

“Well, the question is—how can you know _anything_ about an extinct ecosystem?” Ellie asked. “And, therefore, how could you ever assume that you can control it? You have plants in this building that are poisonous—you picked them because they look good. But these are aggressive living things that have no idea what century they’re in, and they’ll defend themselves, violently if necessary.” She argued. Hammond looked amazed.

“Dr. Grant,” he motioned to Alan, who had kept to himself this whole time. “If there’s one person here… who can appreciate what I’m trying to do—”

“The world has just changed so radically, and we’re all running to catch up.” Alan started. “I don’t want to jump to any conclusions, but look—dinosaurs and man, two species separated by 65 million years of evolution, have just been suddenly thrown back into the mix together. How can we possibly have the slightest idea what to expect?”

“Also, John, if I may.” I cleared my throat. “Dr. Grant has made a-a-a fantastic point. Things happen for a reason. Some people say it’s God, some people say it’s the natural order of things. 65 million years ago, dinosaurs went extinct. I believe at least 2 to 3 million years ago the first humans came about. While they did have to fight off some animals, as we still do sometimes, they aren’t, you know…” I stretched my arm up as high as I could to show my argument more. “As tall as a skyscraper.” I repositioned myself in my seat. “My point is, John… While what you may have done _is_ groundbreaking, I will not deny you that, but it’s not right. Man and dinosaurs are not meant to co-exist with one another. I’m sorry.”

“I don’t believe it.” Hammond threw his hands up into the air. “I don’t believe it,” He began pointing at Alan. “You’re meant to come down here and defend me against these characters,” he pointed at Ian, the lawyer and myself. “And the only one I’ve got on my side is the bloodsucking lawyer.” He then pointed at Donald again, who didn’t look too thrilled at being called what he was just called.

“Thank you,” he said, nonetheless. A man dressed as a butler came in and whispered in Hammond’s ear, which made the older man smile.

“Well, they’re here.” He said, standing up.


	5. Chapter 5

Chapter Five

_1979_

" _Daddy!" Rhiannon ran from my side and hurried to Ian's arms as he picked her up. I smiled a bit, leaning on the wall as the two began their conversation together. Staying put, I smiled more. We had just moved into our new home that Ian and I had bought with the money we both were making. It was just outside of Austin, Texas, and it was a beautiful old-style home that could hold parties, gatherings and lectures. We both were going back to school for our PhDs, but the fact of the matter was that we honestly didn't need to. We just wanted to at that point.  
Between the both of us, we made great money. It was such a change from four years ago when we were married and had Rhiannon (I was pregnant literally a month after we married). I loved it. I sipped my drink as Ian and Rhiannon kept talking, and Rhiannon was laughing at something Ian had said. I wasn't paying too much attention to the conversation. But the way they were both grinning at one another, it was clear of the love they had for each other. Rhiannon was such a Daddy's Girl, and she was the apple of Ian's eye. Anytime we went anywhere, he'd brag about her. About how she was beginning to walk at around nine months._

" _Ian," I remembered saying to him, "Most babies start around that time."_

" _Not me," he'd said. "I was a late bloomer. I-I started around ten months. She's already smarter than her old man." The grin on his face as he said this was unmistakable._

_Then her first word right before her first birthday—Dada. I think that there really sealed their bond._

_I watched them together, Rhiannon hugging him tightly around the neck as Ian looked over at me. I grinned at him._

" _I think she missed you." I chuckled._

" _I can tell." Ian smiled, walking over to me and giving me a quick kiss on the cheek._

We walked out of the dining room, Hammond not as annoyed as he was before. Seems to be, whatever the butler told him cheered him up immensely.

"You five are going to have a spot of company out in the park." Hammond said as we walked towards the main doors of the building. "Spend a little time with our target audience."

"Grandpa!" I heard two kids yell. I looked to my right, and a young girl and a younger boy were running towards the stairs.

"Kids!" Hammond grinned, holding his arms out. He laughed as they ran up the stairs, tackling him soon after. "Wait! Careful with the old man."

"We miss you." The girl grinned.

"Thanks for the presents." The boy said,

"We loved the presents. They were great."

"It's good to see you. Did you enjoy the helicopter?"

At this, I saw Ellie look back at Alan and smile. Alan, on the other hand, was holding his hat and looked a little unnerved by the new development of children. I glanced over at Ian, who also looked a bit nervous about the kids being there, but I had a feeling it was for a completely different reason. As the kids went on about the helicopter, I nudged Ian.

"What's eating you?" I asked quietly.

"I'm not going to say much, but what I am going to say is, because of what this park, ah, has as attractions… I wouldn't allow Rhi and Evan to come here at all. It's too dangerous," He whispered.

We then walked out of the building, the kids laughing and talking with Hammond as we did so. Two cars pulled up, and the kids started towards them, but Hammond held them back a bit.

"Now, kids," he warned them. "Come away. Not too close to the cars." Not too long after he said this, the cars stopped, and Hammond laughed to himself. "Aren't they lovely? Aren't they glorious though?" we walked to the cars and the girl looked inside of one, curious. "These will be your transports for the afternoon."

"No drivers." Gennaro remarked.

"No, no, no, no, no. No drivers." Hammond confirmed. "They're electric. They run on this track in the middle of the roadway here." He motioned to the metal track in front of us. "Totally nonpolluting. Top of the line. Spared no expense." We looked back as the girl and her brother were in the first car. "Lex, darling, you're alright in there?" Hammond looked over at the two other scientists. "Dr. Sattler, come with me. Dr. Grant, come in the second car."

Ian glanced over at me before walking towards the second car. "I'm gonna ride with, uh, Dr. Sattler." He said as Alan gave him a bit of a side eye. I followed him.

"And I'm going to ride with, uh, you." I mocked him a bit. Ian raised his eyebrows.

"Not jealous, are you Dr. Hensen?" he asked me.

"Why would I be jealous?" I narrowed my eyes, getting into the car. Ian looked at me for a moment before talking with Ellie, casually flirting with her. Why was I so angry? Why was I so jealous? I was over Ian. I had to have been. I had just convinced myself I was. And now here I am, jealous he's flirting with another woman. What the  _hell_ was wrong with me. I sighed quietly, running a hand through my hair. I watched Alan and the young boy talking, the boy following Alan relentlessly for a moment before Alan got into our car. It was comical, really, if you took out the whole Alan kind of being rude to the kid thing.

"Do you really think that dinosaurs turned into birds, and that's where they all went?" the young boy asked him.

"Well, a few species may have evolved along those lines." Alan didn't look at the boy, facing away from him. The boy grinned, about to make his argument.

"'Cause they sure don't look like birds to me."

Alan looked back at him as Ellie smiled, amused. Alan began to get out of the car, and the boy soon followed.

"I heard that there's this, um, meteor," the boy continued. "Um, hit the earth someplace down in Mexico and made this big crater?"

Alan bent down a bit, pointing at him. "Listen, uh—"

"Tim." The boy introduced himself.

"Tim, which car were you planning on?"

"Whichever one you are." Tim answered. Alan left Tim's side, the look of annoyance on his face clear as day. Tim followed. "Then I heard about this thing in  _Omni_ ," his voice trailed off as they left our car. Ellie waved the girl, Lex, over.

"I think you should ride with Dr. Grant. It'll be good for him." She smiled a bit.

"Okay." Lex smiled, going over to where Alan was as he shut Tim in the car. Alan, who was not expecting another kid to be next to him, stopped abruptly when he saw Lex there. Ellie was grinning to herself, looking at Alan as the same voice from before came over the P.A. system.

" _The boat is now loading._ " It said. " _Everyone must be on the dock for the 1900-hour departure._ "

In the end, the kids ended up riding with Gennaro (how fun, I feel terrible for them) and Alan, Ellie, Ian and myself rode in the second car. Not too long after everyone got situated, the tour began, and the cars began to move down the track.

"Oh, God help us, we're in the hands of engineers." Ian remarked.

" _During most of your tour_ ," said the tour guide over the speaker. " _The appropriate information will be automatically selected and displayed for you. Simply touch the area of the screen displaying the appropriate icon. Welcome to Jurassic Park_."

We looked up at the huge doors, with the words Jurassic Park over it, as they opened slowly. Ian stared at them.

"What have they got in there, King Kong?" He joked as we drove into the park,

" _The voice you're now hearing is Richard Kiley_ ," Hammond's voice came over the speakers. " _We spared no expense_."

" _If you look to the right_ ," Richard Kiley's voice came on. " _You will see a herd of the first dinosaurs on our tour, called Dilophosaurus._ "

"Dilophosaurus!" Alan pressed his face against the window like a little kid.

"Oh, shit!" Ellie grinned, doing the same.

" _One of the earliest carnivores, we now know Dilophosaurus is actually poisonous, spitting its venom at its prey, causing blindness and eventually paralysis, allowing the carnivore to eat at its leisure. This makes Dilophosaurus a beautiful but deadly addition to Jurassic Park_."

It didn't matter how much anyone looked, though. The Dilophosaurus was nowhere to be seen.

"Alan—where?" Ellie kept looking. Alan banged the door out of disappointment.

"Damn." He said.

The cars stopped not too long after this, as they announced that we were next to the Tyrannosaurus paddock, and everyone went to the sides of the car to look inside the new paddock that we stopped at, except for me. I sat there, still pouting. Ian sighed.

"God creates dinosaurs, God destroys dinosaurs. God creates man, man destroys God. Man creates dinosaurs." He said quietly.

"Dinosaurs… eat man. Woman inherits the earth." Ellie added. Both Ian and Alan stared at her as a ding was heard over the speakers. The same voice as the 1900 boat voice came over.

" _We'll try to tempt the rex now_ ," it said. " _Keep watching the fence_."

Soon after, a goat came up on a lift, bleating as it looked around.

"T. rex doesn't want to be fed. He wants to hunt." Alan snapped. "You can't just… suppress 65 million years of gut instinct."

The goat, obviously just as bored as the rest of us, laid down. Ian went up to the monitor in the car.

"Uh, uh, now eventually you do plan to have  _dinosaurs_  on your, on your dinosaur tour,  _right_?" He said, annoyed. When he got no response, he started again. "Hello?" He knocked on the monitor. "H-Hello?" he waved at the camera before exhaling on it. "Yes?"

I smacked his arm. "Sit back, quit acting like a child." I snapped at him.

"What's gotten into you?" He stared at me.

"Nothing. Just fucking… fucking sit down, you-you're really starting to piss me off." I didn't look at him. Ian stared at me a second more, I'm sure thinking of some kind of comeback, before sitting back next to Alan.

"See, the Tyrannosaur, uh, doesn't obey any set patterns or—or park schedules. The essence, uh, of chaos."

"Um, I'm still not clear on chaos. Wh-what does that mean?" Ellie asked.

"Oh, oh, it simply deals with, uh, unpredictability in complex systems. The shorthand is the—the Butterfly Effect. A butterfly can flap it's wing in Peking, and in Central Park you get rain instead of sunshine."

Ellie made her hand go above her head, as to show she's missing the whole point, before laughing a bit about it.

"Did I go too fast? I did a fly-by." Ian played with her hair. I glared at him, my arms crossed tightly. He looked over at me, noticing my look as he did so. I narrowed my eyes at him, keeping my arms crossed. As I did this, I could see the wheels in Ian's head moving at this point as he glanced at me for another moment, noticed the look on my face, and then he pointed at a glass of water next to Ellie.

"I missed it." Ellie smiled as he did so.

"Give me that glass of water, we're going to conduct an experiment. It should be still. The car's bouncin' up and down, but that's okay. It's just an example." He set the cup down. I looked out the window, trying to ignore them. "Now, put your hand flat like a hieroglyphic. Now, let's say a drop of water falls on your hand."

I snapped my head over to look at Ian and Ellie.  _Oh, he is not_ , I thought.  _That old trick? He used that on me in high school_. I narrowed my eyes as I watched him. Ellie kept her hand flat as Ian picked the water back up.

"Which way is the drop going to fall off? Which finger? Or the thumb?"

"Thumb, I'd say." Ellie responded. Ian dipped one of his fingers into the water before setting a drop of water on her hand.

"Aha, okay," he said. "Now freeze your hand. Freeze your hand. Don't move. I'm going to do the same thing, start with the same place again. Which way is it going to roll off?"

"Let's say back, the same way."

"S-Same way. Back the same way." Ian placed a droplet on Ellie's hand once again, and gasped. "It changed. It changed. Why?" he set the glass down. "Because tiny variations," he took Ellie's hand and I started to simmer. "Uh, the orientation of the hairs on your hands—"

"Hey, Alan, Kerri, look at this," Ellie smiled, listening to Ian.

Oh, Ellie, trust me, I've seen it before.

"Um, the amount of blood distending your vessels, imperfections in the skin—"

"Imperfections in the skin?" Ellie pretended to be offended.

"Oh, just… microscopic. Microscopic. And never repeat and vastly affect the outcome. That's… what?"

"Unpredictability."

"Right." Ian said as Alan hopped out of the car. "There. Look at this. See? See? I'm right again. Nobody could have predicted that Dr. Grant would suddenly, suddenly jump out of a moving vehicle."

"Alan?" Ellie crawled behind me and got out after him.

"There's, uh, another example." Ian threw his hands up into the air.

"You're about to get another example." I snapped at him, hopping out after them as Ellie kept calling Alan's name. Not too long after I hopped out, the kids and Gennaro got out as well.

"Do you hear that?" Alan asked as we made our way into the brush. Tim hurried over to him.

"Like I was saying," he continued their talk from earlier. "There's this other book by a guy named Bakker, and he says the dinosaurs died of a bunch of diseases."

"Where are we going?" Ellie asked. "You see something?"

"Uh, is there anybody else who thinks we shouldn't be out here?" Gennaro piped up.

"…and his book was a  _lot_ fatter than yours!" Tim finished his rambling.

"Really?" Alan asked, a bit disinterested.

"Yours was fully illustrated, honey." Ellie smiled.

"Hey," Tim started, holding up the book he had. Lex tripped, and Alan caught her.

"You okay?" He asked. Tim kept holding the book up.

"Hey, look at this. Wait. Hey, watch." He said to Alan, who was trying to get his hand out of the grip of Lex's. "Hey, come on!" Tim urged. "Watch this."

"Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Everybody stay here." Alan stopped in his tracks as he heard a dull roar. He walked towards the sound, and we all stayed put.

Except for Tim.

Tim pushed his way through us, and both his sister and Ellie reached for him.

"Timmy!"

"Hey, Timmy—"

We followed, the groaning getting louder. As we arrived at the clearing, we could see a Triceratops laying on the ground, groaning every now and again. Alan had his hands on her head, around the small horns on the top.

"Don't be scared, come on, it's okay." The veterinarian urged us to come closer. "Muldoon tranquilized her for me."

Alan looked over at Ellie, who was slack jawed. "She's sick." He told her.

"Oh, my God…" Ellie walked up to the herbivore, Tim next to her as she knelt down. "Oh, my God…" she repeated. The Triceratops groaned, and I could tell this poor creature wasn't feeling 100 percent at all. She had the same look in her eyes that Rhiannon and Evan had whenever they were sick. Alan made his way over to Ellie, his hands on the Triceratops continuously as he did so, kneeling next to her. Ellie looked like she was about to cry. "Hey! Hey, baby." She said to the animal.

"Oh. Oh, God," Alan said quietly, making his way to the other side. Ellie put her hand on the smaller horn on the nose.

"Hey, baby girl." The dinosaur moaned in response. "Yeah."

"She was my favorite when I was a kid," Alan shook his head. "Now that I see her, she's the most beautiful thing I ever saw."

Ian, who I had no idea had gotten out of the car, grabbed me by my elbow gently. "I want to talk to you when we have time." He said to me. "It's about… this whole thing and us—"

"Why don't you just talk to Ellie Sattler? Use the same tricks you used on me back in the day. Because the experiment never gets old." I said quietly.

Ian rolled his eyes. "Oh my God. I-I should have never brought you along. I should've known this kind of thing would have happened, one way or, uh, or another." He muttered.

"You were the one who was flirting with both Ellie and myself, sending off signals to her and myself. Pick a woman, Ian, we aren't here for entertainment." I snarled at him, walking over to Ellie and the dinosaur once again.

Ellie smiled at Alan before looking into the Triceratops' mouth. I walked over to her side to see what was going on. She had her hand on some round thing on the animal's tongue. "It's okay," she told the dinosaur as she pulled it out. "Oh… Macrovesicles. That's interesting." She grimaced as the vet came over, giving her a gold flashlight. "Thanks. What are her symptoms?"

"Oh, imbalance, disorientation, labored breathing." The vet answered.

"Right."

"It seems to happen about every six weeks or so."

Ellie walked over to the other side of the Triceratops. "Six weeks…" she said, mostly to herself as Alan laid on the dinosaur, his body going up and down with her breathing, a goofy grin on his face. "These are dilated." Ellie held the flashlight up to the other eye.

"They are?"

"Take a look." She opened the other eye, making the Triceratops groan a bit. "It's okay."

"I'll be damned."

"That's pharmacological. From local plant life." Ellie stood, looking around a bit. Tim followed her. She knelt down. "Is this West Indian lilac?" she asked.

"Yes." The veterinarian answered. "We know they're toxic, but the animals don't eat 'em."

Ellie picked up some berries, as Ian walked over to where she was, the two of us glaring at each other as he did so. "Are you sure?"

"Pretty sure."

Ellie stood. "There's only one way to be positive. I'd have to see the dinosaur's droppings."

Ian, who had finally left my side, scratched his head. "Dino… droppings, droppings?"

"Yeah."


	6. Chapter 6

Chapter Six

We walked to where the Triceratops typically did their business, and Ian stared at the big pile in front of him, taking his sunglasses off.

“That is one big pile of shit.”

“Yeah, why don’t you go jump in it?” I snapped at him, leaving his side as Ellie, who had humongous gloves on—literally, these things went all the way to her elbows—was digging in another pile.

“Okay…” Ellie looked at some of the droppings in her hands. “You’re right,” she told the vet. “There’s no trace of lilac berries. That’s so odd, though…” she began to run things through her head. “Alright, so she’s suffering from Melia toxicity… every six weeks.” She stood, taking off one of her gloves. “Let’s see,” she looked at another pile with her gloved hand as thunder rumbled in the distance. “Rats. Nada. Every six weeks…” she walked off a bit as Alan, Ian and I watched her.

“She’s, um tenacious.” Ian remarked.

“You have no idea.” Alan said. Ian looked back at her as Alan followed Ellie.

“You will remember to wash your hands before you eat anything?” Ian joked, looking back at them. We then followed them back to where the Triceratops was laying, Ian and I walking a distance behind them.

“So, uh…” Ian started. I tried to tune him out. “About what I said earlier—”

“Which part?” I didn’t look at him. “The part about you wanting to talk about us or the part about you actually not wanting to bring me here because you knew this was going to happen?”

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Ian run a hand through his hair. “Ah… Both.” He finally responded. “I shouldn’t have said what I did earlier.”

“Well, you were right. I shouldn’t be here. None of us should be. Not even the dinosaurs. It isn’t right.” I crossed my arms as we made it back to the clearing.

“Now, about us—”

A loud thunderclap was heard, and Gennaro practically jumped out of his skin.

“Doctors, if you please, I have to insist that we get moving.” He whined. Ellie, who was in front of the sick dinosaur, stood upright.

“You know, if it’s alright, I’d like to stay with Dr. Harding and finish up with the trike.” She said. “If, you know—”

“Sure, I’m in a gas-powered Jeep.” The vet, Dr. Harding, said. “I can drop her at the visitor’s center before I make the boat with the others.” He offered.

“Great. Then I’ll catch up with you if you want to go on.”

“You sure?” Alan asked.

“Yeah. I wanna stay with her a little longer.” Ellie knelt back down next to the Triceratops.

“Okay, then.”

“Okay.”

“ _Now_!” Gennaro snapped. I stared at him.

“Okay, _Dad_.” I narrowed my eyes a bit at him as we made our way back to the cars. As we got there, Ian opened the door for me and I looked at him. “Ever the gentleman.” I got inside as he and Alan followed soon after. Not too soon after, rain began to pour down as we made our way back on the track. The sun seemed to disappear as the dark rainclouds enveloped the area. The car ride was silent for a moment before Alan spoke.

“You got any kids?”

“Me? Oh, oh, hell yeah, three.” Ian opened a flask. “I love kids.” He sipped it.

“Hmm.”

“Anything at all can and does happen.” He offered some to Alan, who shook his head. “Same with wives, for that matter.”

“You married?”

“Occasionally. Uh, yeah—I’m-I’m always on the lookout for a future ex-Mrs. Malcolm.”

“I have the title of the First ex-Mrs. Malcolm.” I piped up. Alan looked back at me for a moment before nodding his head. “I also am the mother of two out of three kids.” I relaxed a bit, looking over at Ian.

“Uh, yeah…” Ian cleared his throat, chuckling nervously. “Well, that’s what happens when you get married and have kids at nineteen, I guess.”

“It was your idea, genius, you were the one who said we should elope.” I glared at the back of his head.

“Well, you didn’t have to say yes, you know.” Ian snapped at me, looking at me through the rearview mirror. “You-You could have said, “No, Ian, I’m not ready to get married yet, I’m too young,” or, uh, something along those lines. But did you? No. Instead you were just as excited as I was, if memory serves.” He looked back at me. I narrowed my eyes, leaning into his face a bit.

“I didn’t say that I wasn’t excited. I was. What I am saying is, Ian, is that you— _you_ , not me—were the one who thought of it.”

“Y-Yeah, but _you_ , not me, encouraged it.”

“I encouraged it—”

“—Yes—”

“— _Me_?”

“ _Yes_.”

“Oh, my God…” Alan muttered, leaning his head on one of his hands as he propped his arm up on his leg.

“We’ll finish this discussion later,” I said. “You’re scaring the paleontologist.” I sat back, crossing my arms again. Ian looked at me for a moment more, and I saw the wheels turning in his head again before he turned back around.

“By the way, Dr. Sattler, um, she’s not, like, available, is she?” he asked.

I couldn’t believe it.

I gripped my knees, mentally restraining myself from kicking the back of Ian’s seat. Oh, did I want to smack the hell out of him right now.

Alan sat up straight, not looking at him. “Why?”

Ian looked over at him before looking away and shaking his head. “Yeah, I’m sorry. You two are, uh—”

Alan turned to face him. “Yeah.” Before the conversation could go any further, the car made a squeaking noise, and everything stopped. Alan lifted his hands away from the steering wheel. “Hey, what’d I touch?”

Ian looked out the window. “Uh, you didn’t touch anything, we stopped.”

“So, what, we aren’t going to be able to make it back or…?” I furrowed my eyebrows, sitting up.

“I-I don’t know,” Ian looked back at me for a moment and I narrowed my eyes at him. He quickly turned back around. “We may have to wait it out in here.”

“This storm could last for hours.”

“I’m sure Hammond will figure something out, don’t worry.” Alan reassured. I bit my lip. Storms always made me nervous. It wasn’t thunder, lightening or rain per se that made me nervous, but it was being out in it that made me nervous. Storms were always unpredictable, and you didn’t know what was going to happen.

Now _that_ scared the living shit out of me.

Outside, the goat was bleating loudly. I wondered if he felt the same way that I did. After all, poor little guy was out in the rain. He wasn’t in a car like us.

Ian started to fumble with the monitor on the dashboard.

“Think we can get anything from the control center?” he asked, and I heard the nervousness in his voice. He was trying to hide it, but I could tell. You know someone long enough, you learn every little thing about them.

“I don’t know. Maybe.” Alan began to mess with it as well. After a moment, I heard Ian groan in irritation, and smacked the side of the monitor. “Don’t do that, you could break it.” Alan warned him. Ian grumbled a bit, shaking his head.

“I swear to God; new technology is just going over my head.” I heard him say.

“Evan would know what to do.” I started chewing on my lip. Ian, who wasn’t looking at me, nodded.

“Yeah, he would.” He said quietly.

“I’m going to go and check on Gennaro and the kids, see if their radio is working.” Alan got out of the car. As he did, thunder boomed again, and I jumped in my seat. I grabbed it tightly, almost white knuckling it, shutting my eyes and trying to calm myself down.

“Kerri.”

“What?”

“Open your eyes for a second.” Ian’s voice was soft, and as I opened my eyes, I saw him turn around in his seat. “Look at me.”

I looked up at him, my anger gone as anxiety started to wash over my body.

“You’re inside of a car. You’ve got a roof, a floor, and four sides all around you. You’re safe.” He said to me, and I could tell he was trying not to show his fear because of my anxiety.

“Easy for you to say, you’re not as scared of storms as I am.” I shook my head, and Ian raised his eyebrows. “You’ve never been scared of anything.”

“I’ve been scared of a lot of things.” Ian said quietly. “Some of them you wouldn’t believe.” He cleared his throat. “Give me your hand.”

“Why?”

“Just… just give me your hand.”

I held up my hand, which was beginning to shake, to him, and he took it in both of his, covering it gently. I felt my stomach flip flop, and my breathing quickened a bit. Ian’s touch was comforting, and I calmed down a bit. We stared into each other’s eyes for a moment.

“You’re okay. Okay?” Ian said softly. I nodded. “You wanna know how you’re okay? Because, one, like I said before, you’re in a car. You’re inside something. You’re safe. And-and two, because, uh… because I’m here.” He cleared his throat. I swallowed hard and nodded my head.

“Okay…” I said quietly.

“Kerri, I—” Ian was cut short as Alan got back into the car and Ian quickly turned forward in his seat.

“Their radio’s out too. Gennaro said to stay put.” He said, glancing at us for a moment, a question forming in his head, but he wasn’t going to ask. I could tell.

“Kids okay?” Ian asked.

“I didn’t ask. Why wouldn’t they be?”

“Kids get scared.”

“What’s to be scared about? It’s just a little hiccup in the power—”

“I didn’t say I was scared.”

“I didn’t say you were scared.”

“I know.”

“It’s just… kids or even people get scared during storms and such like this…” I said quietly as the goat began to bleat again. “I’ve always been scared of storms.”

“Why be scared of storms? It’s just a little rain.” Alan said simply as a loud thud was heard. My eyes widened.

“What the hell was that?”

“What?”

“You didn’t feel that?” I whimpered as the thuds became more and more frequent. I started to freak out and Ian turned to face me again as growling as heard. “Oh, my God…” I started to shake as Gennaro sprinted out of his car and into the bathrooms.

“Where does he think he’s going?” Alan asked as we watched.

“When you gotta go, you gotta go.” Ian answered simply. Soon after, something crashed and the wires to the enclosure began to twang, breaking as they did so.

“Oh, my God, something’s loose.” I sat up in my seat, my feet underneath me. Ian looked at me again.

“Kerri, you gotta calm down, everything… uh…” at this he looked a bit uncertain. “Everything’s going to be fine.” He said, though his voice was uncertain, and reached for my hand again. I took his in mine, holding it tightly.

Famous last words.

Creaking was soon heard and not too long after that, a Tyrannosaurus rex walked out of its enclosure, roaring loudly. All three of us looked out the windshield to see it.

“Boy, do I hate being right all the time.” Ian muttered as he watched the dinosaur from the windshield. I began panting, shaking in my seat.

“Oh, my God, oh my God, oh my God…”

The Tyrannosaurus roared again, standing almost directly in front of us, and then walked past us.

“Keep absolutely still.” Alan advised us. “Its vision is based on movement.”

The Tyrannosaurus walked around to the passenger side of our car, looking around for her food or for anything, I assumed. I wasn’t sure. From the car in front of us, a light shone through the windows.

Oh, God, Lex and Tim.

“Turn the light off. Turn the light off.” Alan snapped quietly. Not like they were going to hear. The rex started towards the car and stopped at the driver’s side. Not too long after, we saw the driver’s side door slam shut, and the Tyrannosaurus snapped her head in the direction, staring into the car for a moment, growling as she did so. She seemed to sniff around the car, and my grip on Ian’s hand got tighter, and I heard him wince. The Tyrannosaurus looked in the back window of the car, and then roared not too long after that. After a moment, the rex hit the side of the car, making it lift off the track for a moment before landing back where it was supposed to be. The light then began to shine through the glass sunroof, getting into the rex’s eyes, irritating it. Because of it, the rex moved in for the attack, shoving her head through the sunroof and breaking the glass.

I could hear Lex and Tim screaming from here.

“Oh, my God,” I said again. “We need to help them.”

“We can’t move.” Alan snapped. “We move, it’ll kill us too. We have to wait until she’s properly distracted by something.”

Ian wiped the windshield with his free hand to see what was going on better.

The rex moved to the front of the car, hitting the driver’s side with her head again. On the second time, the car flipped and landed on the roof. She then stepped on it, tearing the bottom out of the car, piece by piece.

“Move over,” Alan said, quietly, making me move to the side, opening a case beside me in the back of the car. Inside of it sat three flares, and he grabbed one as the rex roared again, and the car in front of us began to bend, sinking ever closer to the ground. Alan ran out of the car, flare lit.

“Alan, no, no, no—” I yelled, but it was too late.

“Hey!” He yelled at the Tyrannosaurus, who roared at him in response. I saw Alan falter for a second and Ian faced me.

“Hand me a flare. Now.” He said. I handed him one. “You take one. I have an idea.”

“Idea or suicide mission?” I whimpered.

“I think it might be leaning more towards suicide mission.” He sighed quietly, looking back at me. “Kerri, if one of us don’t make it—”

“Ian don’t start that—”

“Quit cutting me off, let me talk.” He looked at me. “If one of us don’t make it back, I just want you to-to know that I, uh…” he trailed off before leaning back towards me and grabbing me firm, but gently, by the back of my head and kissed me. I was taken by surprise, and as I started to kiss back, he pulled away. The look in his eyes said it all as he lit the flare and got out of the car.

“Hey-hey! Hey-hey!” Ian waved the flare around, getting the dinosaur’s attention.

“Ian, freeze!” Alan yelled at him.

“Get the kids!” Ian kept waving it.

The Tyrannosaurus roared.

“Get rid of the flare!” Alan yelled as Ian began running off, flare in hand. “ _Get rid of the flare_!”

Ian finally got rid of the flare, tossing it into the enclosure but kept running in the direction of the bathrooms where Gennaro was hiding. I got out of the car on the driver’s side, putting my flare in my back pocket as the Tyrannosaurus followed Ian.

“Ian, no!” I screamed at him, but Ian either wasn’t listening or didn’t hear me. With him, you never could tell. I started after him, but Alan held me back.

“Kerri, don’t,” he started. I began to fight with him.

“Let me go!”

“You wanna die too?” Alan snapped. I stopped fighting, but stood there in the pouring rain, shaking. As I did so, the T. rex slammed her head into the bathrooms, making the building fall to pieces. There Gennaro was, sitting on the toilet and shaking. The Tyrannosaurus eyed him for a moment before Gennaro screamed. The carnivore picked him up, flinging his body around in her mouth for a moment. She then began chomping down on him, and I saw one of his legs fall off, landing in the rubbish pile. As the dinosaur kept tearing into him, I saw Gennaro’s body split in half as she ate him, blood and guts beginning to spill out of him. I had to hold back the urge to puke as she did this, and I felt Alan leave my side, him muttering about having to help the kids.

It was all I could remember before hitting the ground.


	7. Chapter 7

Chapter Seven

_1966_

_I could tell Ian wasn’t the happiest camper to be surrounded by girls at my birthday party. Him and my older brother were the only boys there, and Ian didn’t exactly want to leave his side, unless I wanted to play with him, which I did a lot throughout the day. I even popped a water balloon on his head, which he wasn’t too happy about. But my best friend Donna wanted to play with my new Barbie dolls after we had cake and presents, and I didn’t exactly want to say no._

_Before everyone had left, with Ian being one of the last besides little Summer, who was crying in the back because she skinned her knee (my Mom was currently taking care of it), I walked over to him and nudged him. He looked at me, his new glasses a little too big for his face, and it made me giggle._

_“What?” he asked._

_“Your glasses.” I giggled more. Ian looked away, taking them off._

_“Don’t start. I hate these things.”_

_I smiled a bit, nudging him again. He looked at me, raising his eyebrows._

_“So… I like the gift you gave me.” I smiled more. “How’d you know I wanted that doll?”_

_“I heard you mention it when we were out with your Mom. So, I saved up my ice cream money.” Ian shrugged. “It’s not a big deal.”_

_“Well I still like it anyway.” I smiled, hugging him. He hugged me back before pulling away._

_“You wanna see what my brother got me?” I grinned. Ian nodded. “He said that Mom can’t know though. She didn’t even know he had gotten it for me.”_

_“Okay.” Ian nodded again. I dug in my pocket, pulling out a black switchblade knife. Ian’s big eyes got a bit bigger. “Whoa!”_

_“I know! We can’t play with it, though. Jeff said it was only for self-defense.” I put it back in my pocket._

_“Ian! Your mother’s here!” I heard my Mom call from the back door._

_“I gotta go.” Ian put his glasses back on. “I’ll see you Monday, Kerri. Happy birthday.” He smiled, hugging me one more time before hurrying off to go home._

_“Bye!” I waved at him._

When I came to, Alan, the kids and the rex were nowhere to be seen. I was laying half in a Tyrannosaurus footprint, half on the ground. The bathroom was torn to pieces, and blood stained the walls of the stalls, though it seemed as if the rex decided she wanted a bit more of Gennaro, since the leg that was ripped off was gone. I sat there for a moment, listening around for the rex’s thuds. When I didn’t hear anything, I got up and made my way over to where the stalls used to be. I pulled my hair out of my face, as it was covering my eyes, and began to look around the rubbish piles of the bathroom.

“Ian,” I called quietly, just in case he was awake. My hand brushed something, which turned out to be a Gennaro arm, with bite marks and a bone poking through, and I screamed, throwing it away from me.

“Shhh…” I heard from a pile of rubbish. My eyes lit up.

“Ian?” I asked quietly, hoping for another response. “Ian?”

I heard mumbling to my left and I hurried over to it, taking some rubbish off of it. Underneath was Ian, somewhat conscious. I shook my head, looking him over. He seemed to have a bit of a cut on his forehead, but as I looked more, I noticed his leg bent at an odd angle and bleeding almost profusely.

“Oh, God,” I looked at it, my hands hovering over it.

“Please don’t… Don’t touch it,” I heard Ian whimper.

“I’m not, I’m not. I promise.” I promised him, trying my best to look away from it. “We’ve gotta do something about this leg.” I shook my head.

“Oh, I-I know, I feel it.” Ian sighed, his color draining a little bit from his face. I saw him look up to see it and I leaned in front of his leg.

“Don’t look at it.” I shook my head. “Don’t.”

“That bad, huh?”

“Ian, trust me. It looks as if a bone could poke through if you move it.”

Ian swallowed hard, shutting his eyes. I started to take his belt off—which, I could tell, was already halfway off, seemed like Ian beat me to the idea—and his eyebrows raised up a bit.

“Kerri, uh, I know we’re alone, but now?” He joked. I couldn’t help it. I laughed, a bit harder than I should have. I saw him smile weakly, looking up at me. “Making a tourniquet?”

“Yeah.” I nodded. He nodded for a moment.

“I was going to, but I didn’t have enough energy to get my belt off. I had to take a break.”

“Don’t worry, I’ve always have had more energy than you when it came to stuff like that,” I joked. Ian got a huge grin on his face.

“Oh, I know.”

“You’re so nasty. Here you are in pain, and all you can think about is sex?”

“What can I say, I’m a-a masochist.” Ian joked, and I snorted quietly. I got his belt off as gently as I could and slid it under his thigh.

“You let me know if this hurts at all, okay?” I told him.

“Oh, you’ll know.” Ian nodded, all the joking out of his system. I nodded and began to wrap the belt around his thigh. I reached in my pocket with my free hand, grabbing my old switchblade from my pocket, opening it and notching another hole for it after the last one to make it a bit tighter.

“That good?”

“Mhmm.” Ian nodded quickly.

“Too tight?”

“No.” I heard him force out. He opened his eyes after a moment, sitting up and saw me shutting my switchblade. “You still have that old thing?”

“Of course I do. Jeff gave it to me.” I answered simply, examining the cut on his forehead. Ian looked up at me with those brown eyes of his, and I tried to ignore them, but I couldn’t after a moment. “What?” I smiled a bit.

“Nothing.” Ian shook his head weakly. I sat up, setting my switch on the ground. I grabbed the edge of my tank top, beginning to rip it. “What’re you doing?”

“You’ll see,” I ripped it a bit on both of the seams, about a good two inches, before taking it off.

“Whoa,” Ian’s eyes got wide. “What—”

“I’m making a bandage for you, I’m not getting naked.” I answered quickly, blushing deeply. I opened my blade back up, cutting my shirt all the way through the front. After, I shut my blade again and put my shirt back on. I folded the makeshift bandage a couple times before setting it on Ian’s head, putting a bit of pressure on it to make it stop bleeding. “How do you feel?” I asked. “Lay back.”

“Well, honestly, I’ve felt better.” Ian laid back and shut his eyes for a moment before looking at me again. “How about you?”

“Oh, I’m scared as hell.” I whispered. “But I’ll be okay.”

“How’d you escape the Tyrannosaurus?”

“I fainted.”

Ian laughed quietly. “Well, if it works, right?”

I nodded. “Yeah.”

“What about Alan and the kids?”

At this, I shook my head. “I honestly don’t really know, uh… I know he went to help them, but I’m not sure if…”

“If they survived or not.” Ian finished my sentence.

“God, I hope they did.” I sighed, lifting the bandage to check on the blood flow. When I noticed it wasn’t as bad, I just held it in my hands. “Why was Hammond so _stupid_ , I don’t understand.” I shook my head.

“I thought I disliked him, but now I hate him.” Ian snapped a bit. “You know, uh, I wouldn’t be in this mess if-if it wasn’t for him. My leg wouldn’t be broken, no one would be missing, uh, just…” he trailed off, anger on his face. I nodded.

“I know.” I bit my lip for a moment before undoing his shirt.

“Oh, Kerri,” he joked. I rolled my eyes.

“I’m checking your torso for wounds. Don’t get yourself excited.” I told him, opening his shirt and examining his chest. Once I saw nothing was wrong there, I calmed down.

“I can’t help it. If I see a-a beautiful woman unbuttoning my shirt, I just can’t help myself.” He joked. I hit his torso lightly.

“Cut it out,” I blushed a bit. I kept my hand on his shirt, on the part where the buttons would button up, rubbing it in between my thumb and forefinger. The rain began to lighten up, soon becoming nothing but a mere drizzle. I looked at Ian, who put his hand over mine. “I guess this is what you wanted to talk about?” I asked quietly.

“Well, I imagined it in a hotel room or, you know, some-someplace _dry_. But yeah.”

I smiled a bit, shaking my head. “Um… Ian, I…” I looked at him, holding his hand in mine, smiling at him.

But not for long.

I saw his eyes widen. “Kerri,”

“What?”

“You still have that flare on you?”

“Yeah. Why?”

That’s when I felt the thud. My eyes widened.

“Uh, that. That’s why.” Ian swallowed hard, his eyes wide as saucers. He looked around me as I heard the Tyrannosaurus roar loudly. I didn’t turn, but I began to shake. “You need to light that flare and distract it.”

“But—”

“Gennaro was dinner, you wanna-you wanna be dessert?” Ian hissed, the fear evident in his eyes. He wasn’t watching me though. He was watching every movement the Tyrannosaurus made.

Since we were staying still, she couldn’t see us, but I knew he was watching her. He wouldn’t hardly blink half the time he was watching her so intently. My grip on his hand tightened, and I swallowed hard.

“Kerri…” he said quietly. “She’s not facing us.” His voice was as even and calm as he could get it, but I heard it shaking a bit. “Stand up slowly and-and try to get her attention with the flare.”

I swallowed hard, trying to calm myself down. “Let me know when she’s looking.” I said quietly, as I began to cover him back up with the rubbish.

“What’re you doing?” He looked at me for a moment, eyes still wide.

“Don’t look at me, pay attention to her. I’m covering you back up just in case.” As I went to put some rubbish to cover his face, he grabbed my wrist gently. I looked at him.

“Kerri, I-I just wanna say, uh—”

“I know.” I nodded, kissing his forehead quickly as I stood up. I took a deep breath, taking my flare out of my back pocket and lighting it. I held it up high and the Tyrannosaurus quickly turned her head to face me. “Ian, stay still, I’m going to succeed with what you just tried to do.”

“Kerri—” Ian started but I cut him off.

“Hey!” I yelled at the carnivore, who roared. I started running towards the trees around us, away from Ian, from the broken stalls, from anything and everything that I could. I felt her running behind me, and I could tell she was beginning to pick up her pace. This is what these animals loved to do. Dinosaurs—carnivorous ones—loved the hunt. The thrill of it, the catch and the kill.

But I would be damned if I would give her the satisfaction she wanted.

I tossed the flare towards some trees and hopped behind one quickly, watching as the Tyrannosaurus roared, running after the flare. I smirked to myself, having bested her. I felt her walk off, the thuds getting further and further away from me, her roars more and more distant. Swallowing hard, I took a chance, looking out from behind a tree. She was nowhere in sight.

Taking another chance, I began to sprint away from the trees and back into the clearing where Ian was. My mind was running a million miles a minute, at least it felt like it. I had so many things running through it. I didn’t even know what to think.

It took me until last year to get over Ian. He was my first everything. And I mean _everything._ First love, first kiss, _everything_. I wanted to think there was some kind of hope for us. And, last year, I finally convinced myself that there was no hope, so I moved on as best I could. I guess that’s why Ian’s marriages after us never lasted long. He wasn’t completely over me.

In the clearing, I saw Ellie and Muldoon, who were frantically looking around.

“ _Alan_!” Ellie screamed.

“ _Grant_!” Muldoon’s voice echoed a bit. I saw Ellie bend down, a bit of a ways away from Muldoon as I got closer. “I think this was Gennaro,” I heard Muldoon say.

“I think this was too,” Ellie added.

“Oh, God,” I stopped after a moment, catching my breath. Both Muldoon and Ellie looked over me and made their way over.

“Kerri are you okay?” Ellie asked.

“Are you hurt?”

I shook my head, panting as I tried to catch my breath. My lungs were on absolute fire. Roaring was heard not too far from us, and the three of us jumped.

“I think it’s ahead of us.” Ellie said.

“It could be anywhere.” Muldoon clarified. “With the fences down, it can wander in and out of any paddock it likes.”

“I guess… you know about the T. rex then?” I stood straight. “I had… I had the last flare. I tossed it into the trees over there,” I pointed beside me. “But I guess she had her own ideas.”

“Sounds like it.” Ellie looked nervous. Ian groaned beside us, and Ellie hurried over to him, pulling the rubbish back that I put over him to hide him. “Oh, God. He put a tourniquet on.” She observed.

“I did. It was his idea, but he was too weak,” I knelt down on the other side of Ian, checking his head wound once again.

“I’m glad someone did. Ian.” Ellie called his name. “Ian!”

“Remind me to thank John for a lovely weekend.” Ian grumbled, his eyes still closed. The Tyrannosaurus roared again and all of us, save for Ian, looked up quickly.

“Can we chance moving him?” Ellie asked as the roaring continued. Ian sat up, fear etched on his face.

“Please chance it.”


	8. Chapter 8

Chapter Eight

_1980_

_“_ And on the radio, we’ve got What I Like About You by the Romantics— _”_

_I saw Ian grin, turning it up a bit. “Oh, hell yeah.”_

_“Careful, Evan’s asleep.” I chewed on my bottom lip._

_“Ah, it won’t wake him. He’ll be fine,” He tapped a hand on the steering to the beat and behind me, I could see Rhiannon nodding her head to the beat. I smiled a bit, looking at Ian, who was singing along to the song. He took my hand in his free one, holding it as he drove._

_“You’re so corny.” I smiled, rolling my eyes._

_“I-I’m not corny, I just like this song. There’s nothing wrong with that.” He smiled back, stopping at a red light._

_We were driving to my mother’s house for Thanksgiving. Rhiannon had just turned five two days ago, and Evan had just turned six months old today. Mom hadn’t met Evan yet, and I always felt bad with her not seeing her grandson, but it was hard for her to break away from work now, especially since Dad passed away in March. Losing a parent is a terrible thing to go through, regardless, but when you’re seven months pregnant with your hormones going every which way, it was made much, much worse._

_Mom had seen pictures of him, I sent them at least once a week, but I know it’s not the same. She bought little outfits for him, sending them every now and again when she could. A lot of them were for 9 months and up, so they were a bit big on him, but he had room to grow._

_Evan was such a happy baby. He slept through the night—most of the time, there were nights where he would wail as loud as he could, and Ian and I would stay up the whole night since neither of us could sleep. Add on a grouchy Rhiannon because of it, and the morning after was just a hell of a lot of fun. I have never seen Evan without a smile on his face, though, and that boy had some thick hair, let me tell you. The heartburn was real with that kid. It was the same way with Rhiannon, and it wasn’t exactly a surprise since Ian and I both had extremely thick hair._

_“So what time are we supposed to be at your parents’?” I asked, checking my watch. 11:45 in the AM. Not bad timing._

_“Uh…” Ian tapped his fingers on the steering wheel, thinking. “I want to say, uh, 2:30? I can’t remember. I’ll call them when we get there.”_

_I nodded. “I’ll remind you.” I put my hair up, sighing to myself. God, I had to cut it. Not yet, though, not with Christmas and the weather getting colder and colder. I was never one for scarves. They annoyed the hell out of me._

_“Are we there yet?” Rhiannon’s little voice popped into the conversation. Ian glanced at her in the rearview mirror before putting his eyes back on the road._

_“Almost, kiddo.” He said. “About thirty more minutes, okay?”_

_Rhiannon huffed a bit, leaning back in her seat. “Okay…”_

_“Ready to see Gigi, Rhi?” I asked her. Rhiannon nodded._

_“Yeah. She lets me have candy.”_

_Ian chuckled to himself, and I couldn’t help but smile. It was true. Whenever Mom had time to babysit Rhiannon, like whenever Ian and I had a date night, she would give her Hershey’s and Reese’s galore. Hell of a lot of fun to put into bed afterwards. I never really minded, since at the time, Rhiannon was Mom’s only grandchild and she wanted to spoil her all she could. Like Evan, she sent little outfits in the mail—and still does—and would give Rhiannon dolls and other kinds of toys whenever we got to the house._

_Not too long after, we pulled up in the driveway of my childhood home. What was easiest was that Ian’s was walking distance from us. However, the Malcolm family was exceptionally big, Ian being the eldest of six, and it was hard to Mom to make dinner for the four of us, and then seven other people, so typically we went to see Mom first, and then the Malcolms. Later on, we’d merge and have a big get together since our families have known each other so long.  
And Ian was the most successful out of the six, what with being a scientist and, now at least, respected chaotician. He had four younger brothers and one younger sister, who was the baby of the family. Safe to assume, Ian’s parents started early, his mother having him when she was sixteen. His father was eighteen, and the two married with his mother’s parents signing an agreement to let it happen. The second Malcolm son, Chris, was born two years later. Then Giovanni came along three years after that. After Giovanni was Samuel two years after Giovanni, and then Trevor came along a year after that. And then, finally after Trevor, came Laura in 1968. Ian’s mother was put under a lot of strain with Laura and ended up having to have a hysterectomy—which she says she’s happy about since she finally got her daughter and was more than happy with the amount of kids she had. It wasn’t strange to me that Ian and Laura were twelve years apart, since Jeff and I were seven years apart. But it did blow my mind that Ian was one of six. I never understood how his mother could even handle it.   
Especially with Ian being the smartass he was, even when he was a kid, making jokes at the _ worst _time and getting grounded half the time because of it. As he got older, he would make the joke that his parents continued their little hobby, though this time with no consequences. If his mother heard, she typically would give him that look all mothers gave, smacking him on the arm afterwards. Ian was close with his family, and he loved them a lot. Especially his mother. Ian truly was a Momma’s Boy._

_“Alright,” Ian took his seatbelt off. “Ready to go see Gigi?” He smiled at Rhiannon, who was grinning from ear to ear and yanking her seatbelt off as quick as she could._

_“I’ll get Evan,” I smiled softly, getting out of the car as Rhiannon hopped out and sprinted towards the door. Apparently, Ian caught her because she whined a bit._

_“Not yet, we gotta wait on Momma and Evan, okay?”_

_“Okay…”_

_I opened the driver’s side back door, and saw Evan sleeping soundly in his car seat. I smiled softly, unbuckling it. This seemed to wake him a bit, as he began to whine._

_“Shh, baby, it’s okay,” I got him out of the car seat as he opened his big blue eyes. He looked up at me before taking in his surroundings and babbling a bit. I picked him up, and Evan kept looking around, babbling more but with a curious tone to his voice. I laughed a bit, looking over at Ian, who was smiling._

_“He’s vocal today, isn’t he?” He remarked._

_“Well, he’s your son, Ian, it’d be odd if he weren’t.” I joked. Ian laughed a bit as Rhiannon grabbed his hand._

_I honestly thought that everything was going to be just fine for us, for our kids, for our families. But by this time next year, things would be much, much different._

_1993_

“We’ve got to lift him gently,” Muldoon advised, as we heard the rex roar in the distance. Ian, who seemed to have lost a bit of color again, spoke up.

“I don’t care how you do it. Just, uh, do it because-because I don’t wanna be out here when that thing gets back.”

“Kerri, you grab his shoulders on the count of three. Ellie don’t let his leg move. I’ll get him under his good leg and around his waist so he’s easier to carry.”

“Okay, okay.” Ellie nodded quickly, hurrying to Ian’s left side where I was, and gently placing her hand under his leg as best she could. Ian cried out in pain, shutting his eyes tightly. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry,” Ellie apologized profusely, but Ian quickly shook his head.

“No, no.” he kept shaking his head.

“Count of three.” Muldoon placed his hand under Ian’s good leg, his arm around his waist. Ian, in classic Ian fashion, smirked to himself.

“You gonna keep your hand there, or are you going to buy me dinner first?” He joked, though his face was still contorted in pain. I grabbed him under his shoulders and looked at Muldoon and waited for the green light, so to speak.

“One, two, three.” Muldoon counted down quickly, and we picked Ian up, Ellie keeping Ian’s broken leg as steady as she could. I heard Ian groan quietly as we made our way over to the gas Jeep. The Tyrannosaurus roared again, making me stop in my tracks, but Muldoon shook his head. “Don’t stop, keep going,” he told me, and I started walking again. We made it over to the Jeep and placed Ian in it carefully.

“Are you comfortable?” Ellie asked him as Ian sat up carefully.

“I’d be more comfortable in a bed, but yeah, I-I’m okay.” Ian answered, wincing a bit as she gently let go of his leg.

“Okay, I’m going to keep looking.” Ellie then grabbed her flashlight and ran over to the broken enclosure, looking around frantically. Muldoon looked back at her as the Tyrannosaurus roared not too far from us.

“Ellie, come on!” he urged her.

“Wait, wait.” Ellie kept looking around, looking down into the enclosure. She turned around quickly, her eyes wide. “The other car!”

“Where is it?” I hurried over to where she was, looking down into the enclosure. The first car was crushed, almost completely, and was still upside down. All around it were broken tree branches and leaves, so it wasn’t hard to tell that this thing had fallen out of tree at some point. However, Alan, Lex and Tim were nowhere to be seen.

“I’m going down there.” Ellie grabbed one of the wires.

“I’ll go with you,” Muldoon offered, grabbing one as well. I started to grab one, but he stopped me. “Someone needs to stay with Dr. Malcolm, and since you two have some history together—”

“Hammond told you?” I joked a bit.

“Only a little. I think you’d be the best to stay behind with him.”

I nodded. “Will do. You two be careful down there.”

“Considering the T. rex isn’t down there, I don’t _think_ , I believe Dr. Sattler and I are out of harm’s way. We’ll be back as soon as we can.”

I nodded, going back over to Ian, who had his eyes shut. I stroked his hair gently, and he opened them for a moment before looking at me.

“Didn’t feel like doing a rescue mission?”

“I tried, but Muldoon said I should stay behind. They’re looking for Alan and the kids in the enclosure. That’s where they found the other car.”

Ian nodded, shutting his eyes again. “Kerri…” he took in a deep breath. “I’m so sorry I brought you here.”

“Ian don’t—”

“No, I am. I really am. You wouldn’t-you wouldn’t be in danger if I didn’t bring you.”

“Ian, if you didn’t bring me you could be dead right now.” I said quietly, continuing to stroke his hair.

“Maybe…” he sighed. “Maybe not. Who knows.”

We stood there in silence for a moment before I saw a soft smile on his face appear.

“Hey,” he opened his eyes again, looking at me. “You-you remember when we were at our, uh, senior prom and Jeff crashed it?”

I laughed quietly. “Yeah, yeah I do. He was on leave.” I nodded.

“Hell of dancer for an Army guy.”

I laughed a bit more, wiping my eyes. “Yeah…”

Ian shut his eyes again and seemed to be on the verge of passing out. I took his hand in mine, and he held it. In the distance, I heard a thud and my heart about stopped. I didn’t want to tell Ian, because part of me wished that he would have passed out, so he wouldn’t feel the pain at this time, and the other part of me wished that the thudding would stop.

It didn’t.

The booming became more and more frequent and Ian’s eyes snapped open. He looked over at the Tyrannosaurus footprint beside us, watching as the stagnant water rippled with every boom.

“Anybody hear that?” He asked nervously, looking around. “It’s a, um—it’s an impact tremor, is what it is. I’m fairly alarmed here.” He looked at me. “Keys?”

“No.” I shook my head. “Muldoon’s got them.”

“Ah, shit.”

We saw movement in front of us as I hopped into the back of the Jeep beside Ian. Ian was ushering Ellie and Muldoon, who we saw coming towards us, to hurry up.

“Come on, come on, come. We gotta get outta here-gotta get outta here. Now, now. Right now!” Ian tried to hide his panic the best he could, though it was hard for him to do at this point. Ellie and Muldoon began running towards us. “Go, go, go! Let’s go! Hey!” he said as they hopped into the front of the Jeep, Muldoon in the driver’s seat. “Start the engine!”

Right as we began to drive off, the Tyrannosaurus made her way back through the trees, growling ferociously. Muldoon was pushing the Jeep as much as he could, but it wasn’t enough as the rex began to pick up her speed. I grabbed Ian’s hand, holding it tightly as he looked back at Muldoon.

“Must go faster.” He told him as the Tyrannosaurus roared again. “Here it comes! Fifth gear!”

“Shit! Shit! Shit!” Ellie screamed as Ian got as far as he could into the front seat without disturbing them. I started screaming as the rex roared again, and Ian jumped back.

“Get off the stick!” Muldoon snapped at him. “Bloody move!”

“Look out!” Ellie screamed, and Ian and I turned to look.

“Down!”

We lowered our heads as the top of the Jeep was destroyed by a tree that had fallen sideways above us. The Tyrannosaurus walked through it like it was nothing. She caught up to us at that point, smashing her head into the passenger side of the Jeep, making me scream. I kicked at her, though it wasn’t necessary as she was already standing straight up again at that point. Ian leaned on me to keep me from doing so again, and I heard him wince as he did so.

“If it hurts then get off me!” I told him.

“I’m not letting you lose your leg because you’re acting crazy!” he snapped at me. The Tyrannosaurus roared again, and Ellie screamed as loud as she could possibly scream. As a reaction to the roar, Ian leaned back, and Muldoon began to push the Jeep again. We sped up quickly, and the Tyrannosaurus let out a couple roars of defeat as she slowed down and walked away. Ian, who was still gripping my hand, sat up a bit, panting. “Think they’ll have _that_ on the tour?”

The Tyrannosaurus roared again as we drove away.

_1975_

_Ian worked nights at his job, where he had just been promoted to night manager, making good money to help support our small family, which mainly just consisted of the two of us._

_But not for long._

_I was about ready to have this damn baby. Ian and I married earlier this year, in February, almost directly after we turned nineteen—Ian’s birthday was January 13 th of ’56, and mine was February 8th of ‘56, and in March we found out I was pregnant. We didn’t have much time for it to just be the two of us, but in a way, we had, seeing as how we were always on and off since 10th grade.  
But I’m telling you, being pregnant in July in Texas was absolutely unbearable. _

_I looked up as the door opened, wiping my mouth from the Dr. Pepper I had just been drinking. I was currently working on a paper for one of my classes. Ian and I also attended the same college during the day, then Ian would go to work around five, come home around midnight, and then we’d start the process over in the morning with our first class, which was at ten in the morning._

_“Hey, babe,” He smiled at me as he walked in. I smiled a bit, standing up. “You don’t have to stand.”_

_“Well, I want a kiss.” I crossed my arms, pouting playfully._

_“Well, I’m coming to you.” He smiled, walking over to me and taking me in his arms gently. I kissed him quickly before resting my head on his chest. “How’re you feeling?”_

_“A bit better,” I shrugged. “Baby hasn’t been kicking as much, and I’ve been resting.” I looked over at the calendar, which had November 15, 1975 circled on it in bright red ink, and in big capital letters, it read “BABY DUE”._

_Sadly, it was November 23, four days before Thanksgiving, and I still hadn’t had the baby._

_“Hey, don’t feel bad.” Ian held me. “My Mom didn’t have me until she was ten months along.”_

_“Oh, Jesus, yeah thanks, that makes me feel better.” I shook my head as he laughed quietly._

_“What I’m trying to say is, this baby will come, just give it time.”_

_“I’m about to make an appointment to have myself induced.” I snapped a bit._

_Ian rubbed my back, and I looked up at him. “What?” He asked quietly._

_“Are you nervous?” I asked him. Ian stood there for a second. I was certain he was going to say no, be Mr. Macho Man like how he always did. But instead, he held me close._

_“Yeah, a little bit.” He didn’t look at me, instead his eyes were fixed on the calendar. “I know I helped babysit my siblings, but this… This is a horse of a different color.”_

_“I know…” I nodded, burying into him. “I’m so scared. What if this baby hates me? What if I’m a horrible mother? I don’t know what I’m going to do.”_

_“This baby isn’t going to hate you…”_

_“How do you know?”_

_“Because I know you, Kerri. You love babies. And you’re a good person. I highly doubt this kid is going to hate you. It’s going to be okay, Kerri, trust me. Have I ever been wrong before?”_

_“Well, there have been a couple times in high school—” I started but Ian shook his head._

_“No, no, uh, no high-high school doesn’t count.” He tried to hide his smile, and I giggled quietly, pulling away after._

_“You smell liked fast food.”_

_“I’m a night manager at the local Whataburger, what am I supposed to smell like? Macho Musk?”_

_I laughed quietly, sitting down. “Go get a shower, wear some of that cologne I like.” I threw a chip at him._

_“Hey, don’t waste that.” Ian picked it up. “Dare me to eat it?”_

_“Floor’s clean.”_

_Ian shrugged, popping the chip into his mouth. “Five second rule.”_

_I rolled my eyes. “Are you nine or nineteen?”_

_Ian smirked at me, leaving to take his shower. “I’m not really sure at this point.”_

_I laughed quietly, rubbing my stomach gently._

1993

“How’s the leg?”

“Peachy keen. I feel no pain whatsoever.”

“Ian don’t be an asshole.”

I paced the small room we were in as Ellie, Muldoon and Hammond were gone. All of the dinosaurs were currently loose, and I wanted nothing more than to help Ian the best I can. I held my arm, sitting down on the table he was laying on. His shirt was still open, and he was wearing his sunglasses. I shook my head.

“What?” he smiled at me.

“Take those things off, we’re inside.”

“I want to feel like I’m cool.” Ian joked.

“If I tell you you’re cool, will you take them off?”

“Perhaps.” He stroked his chin playfully. I smiled at bit, as I could tell the pain medicine, a morphine shot that he was given not too long ago, started to help him a little bit.

“Fine. You’re cool,”

“Uh uh, you gotta mean it.”

I stared at him. “I do mean it, you douche.”

“Not if you’re calling me that.” He laid back. “Besides, I know you. You just wanna see my handsome face is all.”

Here, I couldn’t tell whether or not he was teasing. “No,” I blushed anyway. “I just think it’s dumb you wearing sunglasses inside a room.”

“You never told me that before.” He teased.

“I did too.”

“When?”

“The day we got married. February 10, 1975.”

He looked up at me. “When did you tell me that?”

“What, you don’t remember?” I crossed my arms.

“No, I don’t.” he sat up.

“You knocked on the bathroom door, asking me if I was ready or not because I had been in there a while. And when I opened the door, you were wearing sunglasses.”

Ian sat there for a moment before he remembered, “Oh, that’s right.” He smiled a bit. “I still have those sunglasses somewhere, too.”

“Really?” I raised my eyebrows. He nodded.

“They’re probably hiding somewhere in my closet.” He sighed and leaned back. “I’ll look for them if we ever make it back home.”

“We will.” I placed my hand on his good leg for comfort. “I can bet money on it.”

“At least one of us can.”

“Hey.” I took his glasses off, blushing at the moment I could see his eyes. “We will.”

Ian sat there for a moment, just looking into my eyes. “I-I’m sorry, Ms. Hansen, but you seem to be blushing.”

I sat back a bit. “I am not. You’re reading way too into this.”

“No-no, no I don’t think I am.” 


	9. Chapter 9

Chapter Nine

I chuckled quietly and shook my head, running a hand through my damp hair. “Ian, what’re we doing? I mean this whole time we’ve been here I’ve felt this… this feeling I haven’t felt in a while, and I know I just got over you. I know I did, because I haven’t thought about you in that way recently. And now, here we are stuck on some Godforsaken island for God knows how long—and you’re fucking teasing me with these little things you do.”

“What things?”

“Oh, don’t play dumb. Putting your arm around me, staying close to me—wearing that cologne you know I like so much! C’mon, Ian, you’re smarter than that.” I snapped. “What, you wanna drive me fucking crazy? Because it’s working!” I stood, putting my hands on my hips.

“Kerri—”

“I mean, right now, I could be writing a paper on Einstein’s Theory of Relativity—which I’m giving a lecture over it in about in a week, mind you—but no, I’m stuck, in here with my ex-husband on some island, awaiting my death by some dinosaur who’s been extinct 65 million fucking years!” I sniffled, and it was then that I realized I was crying. I think half of it may have been frustration. And it was frustrating. Ian and I divorced in 1986. The year after that, he got with Kelly’s mother, married her and officially adopted Kelly (and trust me, I wasn’t a huge fan of Kelly’s mother at all—total bitch). They divorced last year. And now here he is, thrust back into my life as a potential romantic partner for the second time? Oh, no, no, no. I had just gotten over him.

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Ian sigh and lay back again. I looked over at him a bit, trying not to make it noticeable. He was rubbing his temples, and his breathing sounded a bit ragged, like the pain was coming back or something. I went over to him, placing my hand on his cheek.

“Ian…?” I bit my lip. I heard him mumble quietly as he began to pale. Everything seemed to hit him harder, now that he had all of that adrenaline out of his system. “Oh, God,” I tapped his face lightly. “Look at me,” I said quietly. “Ian look at me.”

Ian kept mumbling, rambling about some kind of theory—it wasn’t chaos theory I didn’t think, though it may have been. It was hard for me to make out what he was saying. I stood over him a bit more, trying to get him to open his eyes to look into mine. I kept my hand on his cheek, and in doing so, I kept his head steady.

“Ian,” I said his name again, raising my voice a bit to get his attention, and he opened his eyes slowly. “Look at me. I’m right here.” I pointed at myself. “See me? I’m right here. Look into my eyes. See me?”

Ian’s eyes met mine, and my heart seemed to break. They were so glazed over with pain and fear. I wanted to cry. I could tell he was in so much pain, and there wasn’t much that I could do. With my free hand, I covered my mouth and as much of my face as I could to hide tears that I could feel coming on. I refused to blink, trying to stay strong, but my vision blurred quickly, and I blinked. I felt the tears stream down my cheeks, and I took a deep breath to try and calm myself. I had no time to be in hysterics.

“Ian, you gotta hang in there.” I said to him, checking my watch. He received pain meds not too long ago, and it took a while for them to kick in. Seems, though, they didn’t last too long. “The kids need you. You hear me? I-I need you….” I glanced at the pain medicine, grabbing it. “Here. It’s about time for your medicine again, okay? You need to take this, it’ll help you feel better.” I started to try to give him the medicine, but he started to yank his arm away from me, much like how Evan does with his head whenever I used to give him liquid medicine. “Ian.” I said, sternly. “You take this, you’ll feel better, now come on.” I gave him his shot, and Ian laid there for a moment, not really paying attention to anything. The hand that was on his cheek moved to his hair, and I stroked it gently, in a soothing way. He shut his eyes, as if he was going to take a nap, which, I think, he didn’t exactly need to do at this moment since we _were_ in the middle of an argument, but I suppose things could be worse. Besides, it would be best if he got rest anyway.

After a few minutes, his color seemed to come back just a bit, and I kept stroking his hair, keeping my walkie-talkie on just in case. I stopped after a while and went to the other side of the room, thinking to myself. I chewed on my thumbnail as a force of habit and kept thinking to myself as I heard Ian come about. I looked back and saw him looking around for a moment, a bit panicked, before looking over at me. I saw him physically relax, and a small smile spread across his face.

“I thought you were gone…” He said quietly. I shook my head.

“No. I can’t leave you like this.” I told him. He sat up slowly, propping himself up on his elbow.

“So, are you mad at me or aren’t you, then?” He joked a bit, the real Ian coming back. I shrugged, running a hand through my hair again.

“Honestly, Ian, I don’t know.” I shook my head. “I have no damn idea how I feel towards you right now. I’m so confused.”

“Well, I’m not confused. I know how I feel.” I saw him look up at the ceiling.

“And?” I pressed. He shrugged slightly.

“And… nothing.” He lied. I made my way over to him and saw him blush ever so slightly. I crossed my arms.

“Excuse me, Dr. Malcolm, but I do believe you’re blushing.”

“I don’t blush.” He joked. I nudged him gently.

“Lies.” I smiled a bit. Ian looked at me, a boyish smile on his face. Those pain meds were kicking in faster this time, and I was thankful for that.

“I don’t lie. I just, uh, avoid certain truths to manipulate people.” He kept smiling. I rolled my eyes.

“Spill it, Ian.” I smiled a bit more.

“Well… what would you say about, uh… about us?”

“I’d say we’re divorced.” I cocked an eyebrow. “But that doesn’t necessarily mean anything. Because anything can happen, and I firmly believe that.”

Ian looked at me, the smile gone from his face, replaced with a more serious look that fit this conversation. “And what would you say about giving us another go?”

I stared at him. “Are you serious?”

“As serious as a heart attack.”

“This is what you wanted to talk about right? What you mentioned earlier?”

He nodded. “Yeah…”

“And you pictured it in a hotel room?”

“Yeah.” He rubbed the back of his neck.

“It’s not a hotel room, but at least we’re dry,” I smiled a bit. Ian smiled back. “Ian, like I said, I had just gotten over you. It took me seven years. You were my first love, my first kiss, my first…” I fumbled my words. “Well, you know, my _first_.” I implied. “I was so certain, at 19, you were going to be my only. And then, finally, seven years after we divorced, after you married what’s-her-name and dated what’s-her-face—”

“—Vanessa Curtis and Sarah Harding—” Ian corrected.

“—and adopted Kelly, I thought I had finally gotten over you. I was starting to move on to other men, I had sex with other men,” at this, I saw Ian raise an eyebrow. “Only two,” I said quickly. “While you had the kids. I convinced myself that you and I were officially over. And then you come into _my home_ , drink _my coffee_ out of _my coffee cup_ with that stupid, disgusting hazelnut creamer you like that I—out of the _goodness of my heart_ , mind you—kept there for you—”

“—hazelnut creamer is, uh, the creamer of-of champions—”

“—and make me realize that, _no_ , I’m _not fucking over you_. I just told myself that I was, and I believed it. You can’t just-just-just make someone feel like that about you. It’s not fair.” I pouted. “And I can’t go through that again.”

“What if I say you don’t have to? That I can guarantee that you won’t get hurt like that again?”

I smiled sadly. “There are no guarantees with you, Ian Malcolm. There never have been, and there never will be. Like the time you told me it was a guarantee that you wouldn’t fight Joey Windsor.”

“Hey. I won that fight.” Ian grinned. I laughed, taking a step closer to him. Ian reached for me, and I took his hand in mine. As I did so, I felt my breath catch in my throat, and my heart began to race. It was then that I realized how much I just missed that. Just the one little thing. Him holding my hand. I looked at him, and he gently began to stroke my hand with his thumb.

“And what about all that flirting with Ellie? Asking Dr. Grant if she was available. The whole “water droplets don’t go the same way twice” trick? That you used on me in high school, by the way.” I snapped a bit.

“I just wanted to make you jealous,” Ian looked away, hiding his blush. Typical Ian. I rolled my eyes, shaking my head before looking at him.

“Do you really want to give us another try?”

Ian nodded mutely before answering. “Yeah…” he whispered. “I really do.”

“Maybe. For a little bit. We don’t tell the kids. If it works out, we’ll tell them, but if it doesn’t work out, I don’t want to give their hopes up about Mom and Dad getting back together.”

“I understand.” He nodded again, looking over at me.

I leaned down a bit to be eye level with him. “I just want to make sure… If we do break back up, I have the right to be as mad at you as I want for sucking me back into this.”

“It’s a deal.” Ian nodded. I placed my hand on his cheek. He smiled, genuinely, and leaned in to kiss me. I bit my lip for a moment, before meeting him halfway and kissing him deeply. I tangled my fingers in his hair gently, keeping him close to me as we kissed.

It was then that I realized two things. One was how much I missed this.

The second was how much I really loved and missed this man.

_1974_

_I hurried into my home, shutting the door behind me._

_“We got another letter from Jeff!” I called out, and my mother hurried out of the kitchen._

_“What’s it say? How is he?” she asked, wiping her hands on a towel. The towel was already white with flour because of what she was cooking, and it didn’t help that she kept wiping her hands on it._

_“Mom, you might as well use soap to get that off.” I joked. Mom shrugged._

_“I’ll live and wash the towel. No big deal.”_

_I opened the letter and began to read off of it. Jeff was fine, though Vietnam still wasn’t easy. He missed us, and Dad, even Ian, though he didn’t exactly put it that way. “I even miss that annoying beanpole you’re dating, sis,” he said, oh so elegantly. Jeff and Ian got along just fine half the time, though fought like actual brothers._  
Jeff’s 26 th birthday came and went, with a bunch of combat, though he did get the presents we sent him. He loved them all.   
He saw one of his friends almost get shot and pushed him out of the way. Both were fine, though the friend was shaken up. Jones, I believe he said his name was. 

_That was about it. He gave us his love, said he hoped to come home soon—and hoped the war would be over soon._

_After I finished reading the letter, Mom started back into the kitchen as we heard a knock on the door. She furrowed her eyebrows, looking at me._

_“Ian coming over tonight?”_

_“No, Mom, he’s working. Besides he doesn’t really knock anymore. He just kind of… comes in.” I chewed my bottom lip, just as confused as she was. Mom nodded, going over and answering the door. In front of her stood a military official, a chaplain beside him._

_I didn’t really hear the next words. All I could hear was my mother let out a wail, falling to her knees. My father came downstairs after hearing her cry, was told the news, and completely shut down. He had no emotion on his face, and my mother was clinging to him, just repeating the word, “No,” over and over. I couldn’t move. I was rooted in place for what seemed to be an eternity before finally running upstairs and into Jeff’s room, shutting and locking the door. There, the sobs finally escaped._

_My family was never the same after that._

I stayed put next to Ian, holding his hand as Ellie came into the room.

“So, I talked to John.” She put her hands on her hips. “He wants to try to get power back on around the park.”

“Well, that would be a, uh, good idea, yeah.” Ian remarked.

“We’re going to try to move you to the control room, Ian, so you’re not left in here alone. How’s your leg?” She walked over to us.

“Considering I got another shot, I think I’ll be okay if we move me.”

“Want me to grab under his shoulders like before?” I asked.

“Sounds like a plan.” Ellie grabbed his legs gently, putting more pressure on Ian’s good leg. “So, on three?”

“On three.” I nodded.

“How about five? I think five sounds like a good number.” Ian tried to joke, though I could tell it was partly because he was scared to feel pain from his leg again. I rolled my eyes as Ellie smiled a bit.

“One, two, three.” She counted down as we lifted him up. Ian grabbed my arms gently, holding on to me as we walked towards the control room.

“So what all did Hammond say?” I asked.

“He said that hiring Nedry was a bad idea,” Ellie started, trying to keep a good grip on Ian. She regained it, and we began walking again.

“Who the hell is Nedry?” I furrowed my eyebrows.

“I don’t know, some computer person I think. Anyway, he was so convinced about this park getting money that he said he was going to start back over somehow without hiring Nedry or someone like him—”

“Whoa, whoa, whoa, wait-wait a second.” Ian cut her off. “We don’t need a park like this. Period. End of story. You wanna know why? Because-because the second things shut down, like they did earlier, someone’s going to get seriously injured, or-or killed.”

“Or both.” I added on.

“I know.” Ellie shook her head. “Trust me, I know. I wasn’t to happy about what he said either.”

“He’s just in it for the money. I honestly believe that.” I said. Ellie nodded as we stopped in front of a door.

“Hold on a second.” She said, kicking the door a couple times to get someone to open it. The door opened, and an African American man with a cigarette in his mouth stood there and stepped to the side, letting us in.

“Took you long enough,” he said, jokingly.

“Hey, Ray, it’s two women moving an invalid.” Ellie joked back.

“I’m not an invalid.” Ian shook his head. “I just have a broken leg. There’s a difference.”

“You can place Dr. Malcolm over here.” John Hammond spoke up. We set Ian on a cleared off metal table, and I looked around. Ray went back over to sit at a desk, which was absolutely filthy, as Hammond went over and stood next to him. Muldoon was sitting on the ground, his arms resting on his knees. Ellie sighed, walking to the ramp, and leaning on the railing. I stayed next to Ian, who propped himself up, his open shirt putting his torso on display. I glanced at him, raising an eyebrow and smirking to myself.

“What, you like what you see?” Ian joked quietly.

“I guess so.” I winked at him. I noticed that Hammond watched us for a second, watching our body language and the way we interacted with each other, but not really saying anything. From someone who’s known us and our history together, I suppose it wasn’t really a shock that we would be back together. Perhaps a shock _when_ it happened, but not that it did. I took Ian’s hand as Hammond looked at the computer again. Ray took in a drag of his cigarette, shaking his head.

“I can’t get any of this to work, John.” He said. Hammond slammed his cane on the ground.

“Damn…” he muttered. Then he looked at him after thinking to himself for a moment. “How about shutting down the system?”

“No, no, no. That’s crazy. You’re out of your mind. He’s absolutely out of his mind.” Ray shook his head.  

“W-wait a minute, what exactly would this mean?” Ellie asked.

“We’re talking about a calculated risk, my dear, which is about the only option left to us.” Hammond walked over to her. “We will _never_ find the command that Nedry used. He’s covered his tracks far too well. And I think that it’s obvious now that he’s not coming back. So shutting down the entire system—” he started over towards Ray.

“You can get somebody else, because I won’t do it.” Ray snapped. “I will not—”

“Shutting down the system is the only way to wipe out everything that he did.” Hammond paced again, making his way back over to Ellie. “Now, as I understand it, all the systems will then come back on their original start up mode,” he looked over at Ray. “Correct?”

“Theoretically, yes, but we’ve never shut down the entire system before. It may not come back on at all.”

“Will we get the phones back?” Ellie asked.

“Yes, again, in theory.”

“What about the lysine contingency?” Muldoon spoke up. “We could put that into effect.”

“What’s that?” Ellie asked. Hammond looked outraged.

“That is absolutely out of the question.” He snapped, walking away from Ellie.

“The lysine contingency is intended to prevent the spread of the animals in case they ever get off the island,” Ray explained, taking another drag of his cigarette. “Dr. Wu inserted a gene that creates a single faulty enzyme in protein metabolism. The animals can’t manufacture the amino acid lysine.” Another cigarette drag. “Unless they’re completely supplied with lysine by us, they slip into a coma and die.”

“People… are… dying.” Hammond walked back over to him, still outraged. Ray said nothing but stared up at him. “Will you please shut down the system?”


	10. Chapter 10

Chapter Ten

_1975_

_I was going to kill someone._

_Here I am, about to give birth, and he’s working. I mean, granted yes, I wanted him to work but Ian was working a double today, as the day manager called in sick, and he didn’t get off until midnight. But, the way he saw it was that more hours would equal more money. I didn’t disagree with him, but I was going to smack the shit out of that day manager._

_I wasn’t in the delivery room yet, the doctor said I wasn’t ready, but damn if these contractions didn’t hurt like a bitch. My Mom and Dad had just arrived, my mother taking my hand in hers directly after walking in._

_“How’re you feeling, baby?” She asked me, and I stared at her. “I meant right now, I know how you feel.”_

_“I’m fine right now,” I leaned back. “I just had a contraction before you came in.”_

_“Where’s Ian?” My father asked._

_“Working.” I rolled my eyes._

_“Working? It’s four in the afternoon, he doesn’t go in until five—”_

_“The day manager called in, he couldn’t say no.” I winced a bit. “These started right after he left, which was around eleven or something like that.”_

_“So you haven’t called him?” Mom asked._

_“No, Mom, I just got here.” I snapped. “It’s not like I’m anywhere near a phone, I’m hungry and apparently I can’t eat right now, which is bullshit because I’m about to push a watermelon out from in between my legs—” at this I saw my Dad make a face of, “Maybe I shouldn’t have heard that,” before rubbing the back of his neck. “—and my husband can’t even fucking be here because some asshole had to call in sick.” I teared up, wiping my face. My Dad nodded._

_“I’ll be right back.” He left my side and I looked after him._

_“Dad—?”_

_“I’ll be back.” He walked out of the room. I looked at my Mom, who simply shrugged._

_“Don’t look at me, I don’t know what your father is doing half the time.” She ran a hand through her hair. About a couple minutes later, Dad came back in, a smile on his face._

_“Dad to the rescue.” He said triumphantly. “Ian’s on his way right now.”_

_“How’s he going to get off?” I furrowed my eyebrows._

_“He’s going to call the owner, explain what’s going on. It’s going to be just fine.”_

_My Mom squeezed my hand, stroking my hair. Now, Ian and I currently lived in a town called Midlothian, which was a good thirty to forty-five minutes to where I was, depending on the traffic. I just hoped that I wouldn’t progress that much within that time to where he would miss some of it._

_Knowing the way Ian drives when something big was going on, however, I didn’t worry too much. The thought was still in the back of my head, but I kept calming myself down._

_Ian was at the hospital in less than thirty minutes._

_He hurried into the room where I was, still in his Whataburger uniform, and a look of relief flooded over his face once he realized I wasn’t actively having the baby yet._

_“Thank God I made it in time,” he went over to me, and my Mom took my Dad by the arm, whispering to him. I watched as my Dad started object, but she yanked on his arm and the two walked out, leaving Ian and I alone. I took his hand in mine, smiling a bit up at him. “You okay?”_

_“My contractions are a bit closer now, but I’ll—” I groaned suddenly, squeezing his hand tightly._

_“Uh, sh-should—?”_

_I shook my head, wincing. “Stay.” I forced out, trying my best to breathe. My free hand gripped the side of the bed. “Stay with me…” I whined a bit as the contraction faded away. “Fuck…” I took a deep breath, looking up at him. I blushed as his fingers brushed my hair to the side, and I shook my head. “You’re gonna absolutely lose your shit when I finally have this baby…”_

_“I, uh… I don’t doubt that.” He shook his head. “Not-not at all. God are we even ready?”_

_“Well, hell, we better be.”_

_Ian laughed nervously. “Yeah, we-we better be.”_

1993

Reluctantly, Ray began to shut the systems down one by one. As he did so, Muldoon grabbed a couple flashlights to use later on. Right after that, the lights shut off. Ellie, who had been handed the other flashlight, and Muldoon turned on their lights. Ray looked back at us.

“Hold on to your butts.” He said to us and turned the main system back on. Or tried to, at least. Once he did so, nothing happened, and he looked around. “Um…” we sat in silence for a moment before beeping was heard. Ray walked over to the computer monitor was beeping, looking at it. “It’s okay.” He said, as Hammond quickly made his way over. “Look, see that? It’s on. It worked.”

Ellie and Muldoon hurried over and Ian, who was laying back, lifted himself up a bit to see. “Wait a minute,” Ian asked, a bit panicked. “What do you mean, it worked? Everything’s still off.”

“Well, maybe the shutdown tripped the circuit breakers. All we have to do is turn them back on, reboot a few systems in here—telephones, security doors, half a dozen others—but it worked. System’s ready.”

“Where are the breakers?” Muldoon asked.

“Maintenance shed, the other end of the compound. Three minutes, I can have power back on in the entire park.”

“Well, now, just to be safe, I want everybody in the emergency bunker,” Hammond started as Ray left. “Until Mr. Arnold returns, and the whole system’s up and running again.”

[][][][]

For the third time that day, we picked Ian up and moved him once again, all of us hiding out in the bunker. Ellie, Ian, myself and Muldoon were nervous wrecks, but I myself thought that Ellie was nervous enough for all of us. Hammond didn’t seem all that nervous, since he probably figured Ray would be back anytime, but the rest of us were doing our best to keep ourselves occupied. Hammond, currently, was helping with Ian’s leg.

“Oh, God,” I heard Ellie coming back down the stairs, flashlight in hand. “Something went wrong. Something’s happened. Something’s wrong.”

“This is just a delay.” Hammond reassured. “That’s all it is. All major theme parks have delays.” He placed a blanket on Ian and began tending to his leg again. “When they opened Disneyland in 1956, nothing worked.”

“John—” Ellie started.

“Yeah, but John, if the Pirates of the Caribbean breaks down, the pirates don’t eat the tourists.” Ian pointed out.

“I can’t wait anymore.” Ellie butted in. “Something went wrong. I’m gonna go get the power back on.”

“You can’t just stroll down the road, you know.” Muldoon pointed out as Ian’s face contorted into pain. I took his hand and he squeezed mine. The morphine was wearing off.

“Well, don’t be too hasty. He’s only been gone—” Hammond checked his watch and then trailed off. Muldoon walked over to a cabinet, unlocking and opening it as Ellie followed him.

“I’m going with you.” Muldoon told her.

“Okay.” Ellie responded as Muldoon grabbed a shotgun and began to load it.

“I’m going too. I haven’t been a lot of help lately, I don’t think, so—”

“No, no, please,” Ian looked up at me. I stroked his hair, trying to soothe his worries.

“I’ll be okay.” I reassured him as Hammond grabbed a blueprint and set it down, albeit a bit roughly, making Ian wince.

“Sorry,” Hammond looked over the print, opening it. “Now,” he started as we all looked the prints over. “This isn’t going to be just like switching on the kitchen light, but I think I can follow this and talk you through it.”

Ellie nodded as we all looked over and away from her, and she nodded. “Right.” She grabbed three walkie-talkies, turning them on.

“But, uh, it ought to be me really going.” Hammond added on.

“Why?” Ellie asked.

“Well I’m a—and you’re, um—”

Ellie restrained the urge to roll her eyes. “Look.” She slammed the talkie into his hand.

“Come on, let’s go.” Muldoon started towards the stairs as Ellie handed me a talkie.

“You’re coming, right?” she asked.

“You betcha.” I nodded, glancing at Ian, who was in so much pain. I didn’t want to leave him, but I knew in doing so, it would help him in the long run. “Hang in there for me, babe?” I stroked his hair.

“Please, be careful,” Ian forced out, looking at me. I kissed his cheek.

“I will be.”

As I started to leave, Ellie looked at Hammond. “We can discuss sexism in survival situations when I get back.” She snapped. “You just take us through this step-by-step. We’re on channel two.”

“Right…” Hammond muttered, and Ellie, Muldoon and I left.

As the three of us walked out, all we could hear were animal noises. We walked past the raptor paddock and saw that the Velociraptors had broken out of it and made their way away from where we were, into the brush.

“Oh, God, oh, God…” Ellie whispered.

“The shutdown must have turned off all the fences…” Muldoon said. “Damn it. Even Nedry knew better than to mess with the raptor fences.” He took his hat off for a second, looked around as Ellie began panicking, and then placed his hat back on. “Come on, this way.”

We made our way past the paddock, and Ellie looked through the brush, turning to face us after. “I can see the shed from here.” She whispered. “We can make it if we run.”

“Good idea.” I nodded.

“No.” Muldoon held up the shotgun, staring intently in front of him. “We can’t.”

“Why not?”

“Because we’re being hunted.”

“By what? Raptors?” I asked, worry on my face. Muldoon nodded mutely.

“Oh, God.” Ellie looked terrified.

“From the bushes, straight ahead.” After he heard Ellie starting to panic again, he added, “It’s alright.”

“Like hell it is,” Ellie hissed.

“Run. Both of you. Towards the shed. I’ve got her.” Muldoon took a step forward and then looked over at us after noticing we didn’t more. “Go! _Now_!”

Ellie grabbed my hand and we began sprinting towards the shed. We jumped over a log and then she grabbed on to a branch, swinging herself over a lower one, and I copied her. She grabbed my hand again, so that we’d stay together, and hopped over another log, landing in a muddy puddle. After that we ran through the gate and into the shed, slamming the door behind us. Afterwards, we took only a second before Ellie called out.

“Jesus Christ, I never want to do that again.” I whispered. Ellie nodded.

“Me either. Mr. Arnold?” She started down the stairs. “Mr. Arnold?” she called again before grabbing her walkie-talkie. “John, we’re in.”

“ _Great_.” John’s voice came over our talkies, and I turned mine off. “ _Now, ahead of you is a metal staircase. Go down it.”_

“Okay, going down.” Ellie started down the metal staircase, and I was right behind her.

“ _After 20 or 30 feet, you should come to a T-junction. Take a left._ ” I heard Ian’s voice come over, but I couldn’t make out what he was saying since his voice was too far away from the speaker. John’s voice came back through, annoyed. “ _I understand how to read a schematic_.”

I turned my talkie back on. “What was Ian saying?” I asked.

“ _Give me that—I was just saying that, uh, maybe you two should follow the main cable_.” Ian’s voice came over. Ellie and I looked at each other as John spoke.

“ _And I told you that I know how to read a schematic. Just let me handle this_.”

I rolled my eyes. “They used to fight all the time, nothing new.” I said quietly, trying to diffuse Ellie’s fear. I could see it on her face, she was absolutely terrified to be in here, and so was I. We followed John’s advice, however, turning left and then making another left, going straight not too long after, exactly as he said to do. In the background, I heard Ian muttering something. Then we came to a pipe with a circular valve, with nowhere else to go.

“Damn it. Dead end.” Ellie tried to calm herself down.

“ _Uh, wait a minute, wait a minute. Uh, yes there should have been a right turn back there somewhere_.” John’s voice came over again.

“ _Ellie, Kerri, one of you, look above you._ ” Ian’s voice came over. Ellie and I did so, Ellie shining her flashlight. “ _There should be a large bundle of cable and, uh, pipes all heading in the same direction. Follow that._ ”

“Okay. Following the piping.” Slowly, Ellie and I began following the pipes, and Ellie was the first to spot something. “I see the box. It says, “High Voltage”.” We walked over to it, and I looked it over.

“Ellie, this is it.” I said.

“Yeah, okay. Okay.” Ellie opened the door to the box, and my mouth dropped open with all of the buttons.

“ _Ellie, Kerri, you can’t throw the main switch by hand,_ ” Hammond said. “ _You’ve got to pump up the primer handle in order to get the charge. It’s large, flat and grey_.”

“Alright, here I go, okay?”

“I’ll keep a lookout.” I offered, getting my switchblade out and opening it. Granted, a blade may not be a useful weapon where a Velociraptor would be concerned but it was better than nothing.

“Okay,” Ellie lifted up the primer handle, pumping it. “One, two, three, four,” she counted until it locked. “Okay. Charged.”

“ _Under the words, “Contact Position”, there’s a round, green button which says, “Push to Close”._ ”

““Push to close”, okay.”

“ _Push it_.”

Ellie pushed the button, and the other buttons lit up quickly, making us both jump back.

“ _Now, girls, the red buttons turn on the individual park systems. Switch ‘em on_.”

Ellie began switching all the systems on, the lights becoming red instead of green. She muttered which one was which, mainly to herself I believed. Above us, the lights came on quickly, and Elie grinned, and we high fived. I closed my switch, putting it in my pocket.

“Mr. Hammond, I think we’re back in business!” she exclaimed. Right then, a Velociraptor shoved its head through the cables, making both of us scream. “Oh, my God!” The Velociraptor tried to reach us as Ellie began to climb the chain link fence behind her. “Goddamn!”

“That won’t get you anywhere!” I yanked her down, and pulled her behind the chain link door, and we slammed it shut. At the same time, the raptor got loose and lunged at us, knocking both of us back. Ellie kicked the door shut with her feet, locking it, and backed into the piping, a hand falling onto her shoulder. I eyed it wide as she placed her hand on it. “Oh, Mr. Arnold,” she said relieved.

“Ellie,” I whispered. The way the arm fell on her wasn’t natural. Something was wrong. She turned to face Ray, but when she did, it revealed that the arm was just an arm, bloody at the shoulder. Obviously, the Velociraptor didn’t want that part of Ray Arnold, or was saving it for a snack. Either way, we now know why he didn’t return.

That poor son of a bitch. Had to die right when I was starting to like him, too.

Ellie dropped the arm like it was on fire, gasping, her face one of pure horror. She backed into the chain link, and I grabbed her arm as the raptor began to claw at it. I yanked her back, and we began running, Ellie limping as she had injured herself in the fall. We hurried out of the shed, shutting the door tightly behind us, and past the chain link gate, Ellie shutting it and crying afterwards as she sat on the ground.


	11. Chapter 11

Chapter Eleven

“Ellie are you okay?” I checked on her. She shook her head, still crying. “Ellie, look at me.” I turned her head to face me. “Are you okay?”

“My leg hurts, but I guess I’m okay, yeah.” She answered a moment.

I nodded. “Can you stand?”

“Give me a minute and I’ll try.” She nodded.

“Okay.”

“ _Ellie, Kerri, are you two okay_?” Hammond’s voice came over the walkie-talkie. I answered on mine.

“Uh, yeah we’re fine. We were just chased by a _fucking Velociraptor_ in the shed, but we’re fine. We weren’t bit or anything. Ellie did hurt herself, though, when she fell but she’ll be alright. Also, uh, we found out what happened to Mr. Arnold.”

“ _What happened_?”

“Remember that Velociraptor I mentioned? He was his dinner.”

I heard Ian groan on the other side of the line and heard John curse under his breath.

“ _Ray was a good man, he didn’t deserve to go out like that_.” He said.

“I don’t think anyone does.” I looked back at Ellie. “Can you stand now?”

“Yeah,” she nodded. I held a hand out, pulling her up. She groaned when she put weight on her leg, and I let her put her arm around me as we started back the way we came.

“Okay, we’re on our way.” I told them, setting my talkie on my belt.

“ _Be careful_ ,” Hammond’s voice said as we kept walking through the brush.

“What do you think happened to Muldoon?” I asked. Ellie whimpered as I hopped over a log, helping her over soon after.

“No idea,” she leaned on me and we began walking again. “I just hope he’s okay.”

“Yeah, me too.” I nodded. “Me too.”

We got out of the brush, looking around. Muldoon was nowhere in sight. “Which way did he go?” Ellie asked.

“I think that way.” I pointed to the right. “But that leads towards the raptors.”

“And it also leads to the emergency shed.” Ellie groaned.

“Fuck… well can’t go that way, can we?” I looked around as movement was heard in the brush. My eyes widened, and I looked at Ellie, who looked equally as terrified as I did.

“Wanna just get the hell out of here?” she asked.

“Good idea.”

We hurried as fast as we could, just going straight. Ellie began to bend over more and more in pain, and she was sweating something horrible—in all honesty, the both of us were—half because she was in so much pain, the other half because it was so _humid_ out here that I wanted to fall on the ground and die.

“God, I’m taking this off.” Ellie got her arm off of my shoulders, taking her overshirt off and tossing it to the ground.

“You don’t want it?”

“I’ll get another one.” She fanned her tank top a bit, and I did the same.

“Ellie, you got a hair tie?”

“Here.” She yanked one off her arm, handing it to me. I bundled up my shirt, raising it a bit so that it was just under my ribs, and tied it in the back, hoping to not sweat as much and to cool off. We began walking again, me grabbing Ellie and helping her stand and walk. “So, I have a question,” she looked around our surroundings, looking for raptors. I was doing the same, trying to stay focused on where we were going as well. Which I had no Goddamn idea at this point, we were just walking.

“Spill,” I kept looking around.

“You and Ian… are you two together?”

Boy oh boy, kiddo, you have no idea of our history. “Well, let me just say this. I think we’re giving it another go as soon as we get off this island.” I started. “Ian and I have been together, technically, since we were about sixteen. I mean, we knew each other much longer than that because we grew up on the same street, but…” I trailed off for a second, thinking I heard something but didn’t. “We got married when we were nineteen and were married for eleven years before we divorced. We’ve been divorced seven years, and now he wants to give it another go. Of course he says this _after_ he fucks up his leg and we almost die.” I rolled my eyes.

“What, you wish he would have said it sooner?”

“Seven years sooner, if you want me to be completely honest.” I nodded. Before Ellie could say something else, we heard something move in the bushes, and Ellie stared at me with fear in her eyes.

“Kerri—” She started. and I held a hand up to keep her quiet.

“I don’t think it’s a raptor.” I started. “Though I could be wrong.”

A baby dinosaur bounced through the brush, letting out a little roar. My eyes widened. Ellie gasped.

“Oh my God,” she said, smiling a bit. “It’s a baby Ankylosaurus.”

The baby Ankylosaurus let out another roar upon seeing us, not moving from its spot. I leaned down a bit, reaching my hand out.

“Kerri be careful,” Ellie warned, trying to balance herself. She then knelt down next to me.

“I’ll be okay.” I said, keeping my hand out for the baby to sniff. The Ankylosaurus let out a tiny roar, examining my hand and sniffing it, almost like how a dog would do. It then leaned its head into my hand, and I smiled, petting it gently.

“See? Not so mean after all.” I smiled. Ellie reached out, putting the baby underneath its chin, making it make a couple noises, which could have been the dinosaur equivalent of a purr. After a couple pets, the baby Ankylosaurus let out another tiny roar before hurrying off, most likely to find it’s mother. I smiled a bit, standing up.

“Kerri,” Ellie started. “I thought the dinosaurs weren’t supposed to breed in the wild… How is it possible to have a baby Ankylosaurus?” She leaned on me again, and I let her.

I thought to myself, racking it over in my brain. I couldn’t understand it either. “Like Ian said, Ellie, life finds a way.”

“You think it has anything to do that with frog DNA?”

I stared at her, With the events of what has happened in the past few hours, the whole dinosaur and frog DNA mashup had completely slipped my mind. “You’re right. There’s a breed of frogs that can change their sex, isn’t there?”

“Yeah.”

We looked at each other, and I shook my head. “Life really did find a way, huh?”

Ellie shook her head in amazement. “Holy shit.”

[][][][]

We walked on for a little longer, Ellie holding on to me as her leg was getting worse and worse. We were walking in silence, looking around for any kind of Velociraptors along the way. Or even the Tyrannosaurus if she ever came by.

I heard movement in the brush and Ellie and I exchanged looks, hurrying off as quick as we could. I could see the top of the Visitor’s Center.

“We’re almost there, Ellie, hold on.” I told her. Ellie began panting as

In the distance, we could see a man looking around.

“Ellie!”

Ellie’s breath caught in her throat, and she left my side. She began to lean down, gasping a bit, and at this the man heard it and turned.

It was Dr. Alan Grant.

“Run.” Ellie forced out.

“Ellie!”

The two ran to each other, and I stayed behind to let them have their moment, looking around to make sure we weren’t in any more danger.

“Where have you been?” Dr. Grant scooped Ellie up in his arms, and Ellie wrapped her legs around him, clinging to him. I looked around, before walking towards them.

“Dr. Grant, I’m so glad to see you’re alright,” I smiled a bit as Alan set Ellie down.

“Dr. Hensen,” Alan nodded his head. “I’m glad to se you’re alright too. After you fainted and the whole thing with the T. rex I didn’t have time to get over to you.”

“Don’t worry, I understand. Are the kids okay?”

“The kids are fine. Tim might need a doctor because he got a bit of a shock earlier, but he’ll be okay.”

“Good,” I sighed in relief as we made our way back to the emergency bunker. Ellie began to lean on Alan as we made our way back, and she told him everything. The T. rex chase, Ian breaking his leg, her, Muldoon and I going to turn the power back on in the park, finding Ray’s severed arm. Even the raptor chase and the baby Ankylosaurus. But, even with the happy ending with the baby dinosaur, Alan himself didn’t look too happy at all.

As we stopped in front of the bunker, Alan looked less happy and wearier than someone who had just been reunited with someone he loved should have been.

“It’s gonna be okay. We just gotta get off the island, that’s all.” I said.

“Well, that’s easier said than done.” Alan opened the door. “But we have to try.”

He let us in first, and I saw Ian relax as much as he could as I hurried over to him, taking his hand.

“How are you feeling?” I asked.

“I’m fine, I’m fine,” Ian said, though I could tell he was lying through the pain, gritting his teeth when repeated himself. “How are you? Are you hurt?”

“No, no I’m fine. How’s the leg?” I went to look at his leg, lifting the bandage up and making him groan.

“Don’t-don’t do that please…” He winced.

“Oh, Ian, you definitely need a doctor, and soon.” I fixed his bandage and looked over at Hammond. “Has Muldoon returned?”

“No, no he has not.”

I looked at Ellie, who looked saddened by this fact. “I guess we know what happened to him, huh?”

“Sadly…” Ellie nodded, going over to where Ian and I were. Alan opened the cabinet, getting another shotgun out.

“It’s just the two raptors, right?” He asked, turning to look at Ellie, who had his back to him and checking on Ian. “You’re sure the third one’s contained?”

“Yes.” Ellie looked at him. “Unless they figure out how to open doors.”

“Those raptors are highly intelligent. At this point, I wouldn’t doubt anything like that.” I said, holding Ian’s hand. I looked at Alan. “What’re you gonna do? Shoot it or scare it with that thing?”

“Well, what did you have in mind?”

“Staying in here until we were able to leave.”

“That-that’s not possible, you know that.” Ian spoke up.

“Besides, one of us has to go out there to get Lex and Tim, we can’t just leave them behind.” Ellie added.

“No, I know, I meant staying in here after we got them. They’re kids, they can’t defend themselves from dinosaurs. Especially raptors.” I said. “It’s just… it’s like he’s gearing up for war almost.”

“Well, at this point, it’s almost how it feels.” Alan loaded the gun. “I promised those kids I wouldn’t leave them like Gennaro did. And I intend to keep that promise.”

Ellie looked at him, surprised. “You like kids now?” She joked.

“I didn’t say I liked kids.” Alan retorted, even though he was lying. “I just said I promised them I wouldn’t leave them. There’s a difference.”

“Well, regardless, I’m going with you and you can’t stop me.” Ellie put her hands on her hips.

“Ellie, what about your leg—”

“Screw the leg, I’ll be fine. I’ve made it this far, right?” She smiled a bit. “Besides, I just found you, I don’t want you to leave my sights again.” She kissed him, pulling away quickly and turning around to look at the rest of us as we watched them. “What?”

I shook my head, taking my switchblade out. “I’m going with you. John,” I faced Hammond again, who was currently tending to Ian’s wound for the one hundredth time that day, it seemed. He was losing so much blood… I swallowed hard. “I’m going with them. Keep an eye on Ian, please?”

“Yes, yes,” Hammond waved his hand at me. I started to leave but stopped, kissing Ian gently, cupping his cheek. His hand squeezed mine for a minute before I pulled away.

“I’ll be back soon. I promise.”

“I know.” Ian nodded. We looked at each other, and it seemed as if Ian wanted to say something but didn’t. Instead, he said, “Uh… be safe.”

“I will be.” I nodded.

I walked over to Alan and Ellie. Alan looked at me, an eyebrow cocked as I walked out of the emergency bunker.

“I thought you two were divorced.” He inquired.

“It’s complicated.” I smiled a bit as we made our way back to the Visitor’s Center. I opened my switchblade, holding it tightly. Now of all times, I wish I had my brother back. It’d be nice to have his guidance at this time. He’d know what to do. And not just with Ian, but with this whole situation. I know he wouldn’t have a damn clue about dinosaurs, but he’d probably have a good idea on how to evade them.

Sadly, he was one of the many casualties of Vietnam. It was a hell of a war.

“Are you ready for this?” I heard Ellie ask. Alan shook his head.

“Hell no.”


	12. Chapter 12

Chapter 12

_1982_

" _God, you're such an arrogant jackass!"_

_I slammed the cabinet door, not looking at him._

" _Oh, yeah, Kerri, slam shit like you're ten years old. How about-how about slamming the, uh, drawer next time while you're at it?" Ian snarled at me. I glared at him, my eyes narrowing._

" _Well, if you weren't being such an asshole, maybe I wouldn't slam shit. Maybe, just_ maybe  _if you didn't spend money like it was coming out of your ass, came home on time, or even once—just_ once _—actually wanted to spend some time with me, I wouldn't slam shit." I threw the fork into the sink._

" _So this is my fault?" Ian threw his hands into the air. "Oh yeah, sure-sure. Blame it all on me. I'll take the fall for it, like I always do. But let me ask you this, Kerri? Who just bought that nice little fancy party dress she's never going to wear? I didn't, that's for fucking sure. And—"_

_Anger welled up inside of me, and I cut him off. "Well, I didn't buy that ugly ass Corvette outside, did I? Hell, that was what, easily fifty grand? My dress was only a hundred fucking dollars, that is nothing compared to that ugly ass car out there." I shook my head. "If you were going to buy a car, Ian, why the fuck wouldn't you buy like a-a van or something? Something_ practical  _that we can use with the kids?"_

" _Oh, so I'm not allowed to buy my own car? Maybe I don't want to take a van everywhere I go. Maybe—just-just maybe—I want to have my own car that I can ride in_ by myself _." At this remark, I balled my fists up, digging my nails into the palms of my hands. "Oh, yeah, ball your fists up, Kerri. You gonna hit me or something?" He snapped._

" _You know what, Ian," my voice was dangerously calm. "I'm honestly tired of you being so hateful towards me. That's all you've been. You don't want to do anything for our anniversary, even though I work hard on dinner for us, sent the kids over to my mother's for the night, did my hair and makeup to make sure I look nice, and all you want to do is sleep." I started crying, and I cursed myself, since I cried over everything nowadays. "If you had noticed, that dress you were bitching about I bought for our anniversary. You always said you liked me in red, and so I bought a red dress." I looked upstairs to see if Rhiannon was peeking in on our fights, which she has had a habit of doing recently. Once I didn't see her, I continued. "We haven't had sex in a year. Not since your birthday, and even then, it wasn't anything to even brag about. There was no passion, no feeling. It was just a wham-bam-thank-you-ma'am. It's like you don't care anymore. You seem like you don't care about me, the kids, just work and spending money. That's it."_

" _That's not true, Kerri. You should, uh, you should know that." Ian looked like I had kicked him in the gut._

" _If it's not true, then fucking prove it." I grabbed my purse, going towards the stairs. "Rhiannon, Evan and I are going to my mother's. I don't know when we'll be back. Make your own goddamn dinner." I stormed towards the stairs, calling for the kids. "Rhiannon Leigh! Evan Jeffery!" I called for the kids, going upstairs. "Come on, we're going to go see Gigi."_

" _Gigi?" Rhiannon's little head popped out of her room, a smile on her face. I could tell she was too busy playing with her dolls to really pay attention, but her eyes looked red as if she had been crying._

" _Yes, Gigi. Come on, get your things together." I went into Evan's room and saw Evan sitting on the floor, looking scared. My heart broke as he was curled up in the corner of his room, clutching his teddy bear. I walked over to him, picking him up and holding him. "Come on, baby, it's okay,"_

" _Stop…" Evan said quietly. I looked at him, and he wasn't looking at me,_

" _Stop what?" I got his hair out of his face._

" _Stop fighting." He sniffled. I hugged him tightly to me, standing up as I did so._

" _Hey, you wanna go see Gigi for a while?" I asked him, and he nodded his head. "Come on, let's go see Gigi." I grabbed the diaper bag in the room—Evan was currently potty training ever since he turned two, but sometimes he still had accidents, so I just brought four or five extra pairs of big boy underwear wherever we went just in case._

_After helping Rhiannon find her favorite shoes to wear, I walked downstairs with the kids. I didn't see Ian anywhere, and at that point, I honestly didn't care. I went to the garage, helping Rhiannon into the sedan before putting Evan into his car seat, and getting into the sedan. As I started the car, I looked up at the garage door and saw Ian standing there. Evan was too busy playing with his shirt, while Rhiannon was preoccupied with her Barbie dolls that she wanted to bring along. I looked at Ian, who looked back at me with this sad puppy dog look in his eyes. I then turned my head to back out of the garage, driving off to see my mother._

_When we came home, it was around nine thirty at night. Evan had fallen asleep on the way home, and Rhiannon looked like she was about ready to pass out herself. I led her upstairs as I held Evan in my arms and went into her room with her._

" _Mommy?" She looked up at me with those big brown eyes._

" _Yes, Rhi?"_

" _Are you and Daddy ever going to stop fighting?"_

_I couldn't answer her just yet, and Rhiannon spoke again._

" _Because I don't like it when you fight. It makes me sad."_

" _It makes me sad too, baby." I knelt down eye level to her, getting her hair out of her face. "I don't like fighting with Daddy, but—"_

" _Then why do you? You fight all the time, and I really don't like it." Rhiannon had tears about to spill from her eyes and my heart just shattered in my chest. "Please promise me you'll stop."_

" _I'll try my best…" I stroked her cheek. "Okay?"_

_Though not completely satisfied, Rhiannon nodded her head. "Okay…"_

" _I love you."_

" _I love you too, Mommy."_

" _I'll be back to tuck you in in a minute, okay?"_

" _Can Daddy do it?"_

_I nodded. "I'll ask him,"_

" _Okay."_

" _Go on and get ready for bed."_

" _Okay."_

_I left Rhiannon's room, going to Evan's and getting his pajamas out, changing him out of his clothes and into his nightclothes, trying not to wake him._

" _Kerri?"_

_I stopped for a moment before putting Evan's pajama bottoms on him. "Rhiannon wants you to tuck her in tonight. Can you do that please?" I asked Ian, not looking at him._

" _Yeah," He paused for a second, and I thought he had left since my back was to him, but then he spoke again. "Just, uh… When we get done putting the kids to bed, can we talk? Preferably away from the sleeping children just in case?"_

" _Yeah, sure." I pull the covers back on Evan's bed, setting him in it carefully._

" _Thanks." I heard him walk into the other room, and I did all I could to hold back my tears._

" _Goddammit," I whispered as a couple tears rolled down my face, turning on Evan's nightlight and leaving his door cracked. I walked to Rhiannon's room, where Ian and Rhiannon were talking, Ian doing his best to cheer her up._

" _Daddy?" I heard Rhiannon say._

" _Yeah, kiddo?" Ian responded._

" _Mommy promised to stop fighting, do you?"_

_I felt a few more tears slide down my cheeks as Ian responded to her, saying, "I'll try my best, okay sweetheart? I promise."_

" _Okay."_

_I shook my head, walking downstairs and sitting on the couch, my head in my hands. God, this shit was killing me._

_Beside me, I felt the couch dip down a bit. I knew Ian was there, but I didn't look at him. I physically couldn't._

" _Kerri, I…" He started. I heard him fumble his words. "I know things haven't been going well lately, uh, between-between us."_

" _That's the understatement of the century…" I said bitterly, sniffling._

" _I just want you to know, though, that I'm going to do my best to try and fix things." At this I started shaking my head. "I want you to know that I'm sorry… about everything. I—"_

" _Ian, look at us. We are utterly and completely dysfunctional." I shook my head. "Me doing anything or even you doing anything isn't going to fix this. We're not going to stop fighting. It's just going to get worse and worse. We're lying to ourselves if we think this is going to get any better." I looked over at him, and his eyes said it all. He looked like he had just been kicked in the gut, and that everything he had was being torn from him. In many ways, it was. "We've been together so long that, now, I don't even think it's about love. It's about need." At this point, I felt the tears pouring down my cheeks. "I'm so sorry, Ian, but this time I don't think we're going to work out." Mutely, Ian nodded. "Tomorrow, I'm going to take the kids with me, and I'm going to stay with my mother for a while until I find my own place." I got up then, not having the will to look at him, and hurried upstairs and into the guest bedroom, where I wanted to sleep tonight. There, after shutting the door, I let the sobs escape. My body was shaking, and I wanted nothing more than Ian to hold me, to tell me everything was going to be okay, like he had done in the past. But this time, I knew that it wasn't possible._

1993

Silent, without a word passing between any of us, Alan, Ellie and I made our way into the dining room, where a frightened Tim and Lex were running towards us. Ellie scooped up Tim in her arms and Lex grabbed Alan by his, pointing towards the kitchen.

"It's in there," she said, breathlessly. Alan held up his gun and Ellie looked over at him for a second.

"Control room." She said it without any hesitation, and the five of us hurried there, making our way down the stairs. Ellie burst through the door, going towards the monitor.

"We can call for help?" Lex asked.

"We gotta reboot the system first." Ellie turned the computer on as Alan slammed the door shut.

"The door locks!" He tried to make them go into place, but they wouldn't budge. "Ellie, boot up the door locks!"

I screamed, and Alan looked through the door window, face to face with a Velociraptor. The eyes of the creature narrowed, and it looked down. Not five seconds later, the door handle turned, and the raptor began to try to force her way in. Alan stumbled back as the raptor roared. I ran over, and we shoved the door closed with our combined body weight. At the sound of the door slamming, Ellie looked over at us and then came over as quick as she could.

"No, boot up the door locks!" Alan yelled. Ellie ignored him, pushing her back against the door. "Ellie, get back! Boot up the door locks!"

"You can't hold it by yourselves!" Ellie fell to the ground, helping us hold the door shut as best she could. The raptor squealed, trying to get the door open as Lex ran over to the computer, sitting at the desk. Tim followed her soon after.

"Try to reach the gun!" Alan said as the raptor kept growling, doing it's best to make her way in. Ellie reached for the gun with her leg, her foot just getting it under the strap.

"I can't get it unless I move." She began inching her way towards it, and as she did so, the raptor got the door open the slightest bit, her claws reaching over it. Alan and I had the door shut again for just a second before the raptor tried again, her claws coming back in.

"Hurry up, Ellie!" I looked over at her before glancing back at the raptor, who narrowed her eyes at me. The carnivore growled, doing her best to get into the room by putting her body weight against the door.

"You got it?"

"Yes!"

The kids sounded overjoyed as Alan and I slammed the door shut. The door locked not too long after that, and I fell to the ground, running a hand through my hair and catching my breath. Ellie ran over to the kids, Alan helping me up.

"You okay?" He asked. I shook my head and shrugged, a panicked laugh escaping me.

"Are you?"

"I guess so." We made our way over to Lex and Tim. "What works?" he asked them.

"Phones, security systems. You name it, we got it." Lex answered excitedly, smiling up at Alan. Alan picked the phone up and began to dial the emergency bunker. After a moment, he spoke.

"Mr. Hammond, the phones are working."


	13. Chapter 13

Chapter Thirteen

"The children are fine," Alan answered the unheard question over the phone. I tapped his shoulder.

"Ian," I urged him. "Ask about Ian."

"Dr. Malcolm, how is he?" after a second, Alan nodded, looking at me. "Still in pain, but he'll be alright." He went back to his conversation on the phone. "Call the mainland," he said. "Tell 'em to send the damn helicopters."

Before anything else could be said, a loud crash was heard.

"It's gonna come through the glass!" Ellie cried. Alan began shooting at the raptor through the glass, making her scurry off for a moment. I looked around, as we like sitting ducks just waiting to be slaughtered. That was when, in the back, I noticed a silver ladder.

"The ladder!" I ran over to it and grabbed it. Alan came over to help me, since this thing weighed an absolute ton. "I have an idea. The vents. We can crawl through them. They should bring us out to the lobby of the Visitor's Center, we just have to follow them, and follow the correct ones."

"Sounds like a plan to me." Alan set the ladder up and I climbed up it first, getting the vent cover off and throwing it to the ground. Tim came up next, Ellie third, Lex fourth and Alan fifth. As Alan was climbing up, the raptor burst through the glass, and Alan kicked the ladder down, crawling up into the vents with us. I heard the raptor let out an annoyed roar as we began making our way through the vents, and heard it purr every now and again.

"That way," I pointed towards a direction, and Tim went first, and as Lex was making her way there, the raptor shoved its head through the cover she was on, lifting her up.

Oh, God, this was not good. Not at all.

I never heard someone scream so loud in their life. I thought Lex was going to hurt her voice, she was screaming so loud. Alan kicked the raptor in it's face twice, making it roar and then fall back. As it did so, Lex fell with it and she clung to the opening of the vent, her legs dangling as she screamed. Ellie and Alan grabbed her as I held Tim back, and the raptor jumped up, trying to get her. Once they got her back in, we started crawling again.

"Move! Quickly! Tim, move!" Alan yelled. We made our way through, and Alan opened another vent cover that put us almost directly over the Tyrannosaurus skeleton in the Visitor's Center lobby. We hopped out one by one onto the platforms there, making our way down them. On one of the last ones, we stopped cold as a raptor roared, the same one from the control room.

"Ah, shit." I got my blade out, and Alan glanced at me.

"You think that thing is going to help?" he asked skeptically.

"You got a better idea? Or a better weapon? I'm not the one who dropped that gun back there."

As I made my point, Alan hopped onto the skeleton opposite of the T. rex—I'm not sure what it was exactly, but I knew it was an herbivore. He helped us onto it, one by one, and we clung to the wires that were holding it up. As we got on there, however, the raptor lunged at us, breaking the bones. Ellie was trapped on the tail, which began swinging, while Alan, Lex, Tim and myself were on the other half. I climbed onto the Tyrannosaurus skeleton, clinging to the skull and dangling as I did so.

"Oh, fuck, that was a terrible idea," I muttered, trying to hold on. I heard Lex scream again.

"Tim, let go," I heard Alan say. I looked over, and saw Tim clinging to Alan's hand, a terrified look on his face. "Yeah," Alan reassured him, and Tim fell to the ground, landing on his back. As he did so, the bolts that were holding the wires in place began creaking and falling out of the ceiling. The one that began to break first was the one holding Lex, who screamed again. Ellie slipped off the tail she was on, screaming around the same time as Lex did. As she hit the ground, she looked up to see the bones begin to fall, and she covered her head and balled herself up.

"Oh, Jesus," I muttered, my grip on the skull loosening. My blade fell out of my hand and as it did so, I lost my grip completely, falling to the ground. I grabbed my blade soon after as the skeleton that was holding Alan finally broke, making Alan yell as he fell. The bones landed right over Tim, who covered himself.

Not too far from us, purring and growling was heard, and Ellie and I both looked in the direction. Behind a plastic curtain, a shadow of a raptor was seen before lifting the curtain up with it's head and looking around. Alan hurried over to Tim, picking him up as Lex stood up, and screamed again. She ran over to Alan, who kept her behind him as the three backed away from a second raptor in the room. I held my blade up, trying to make myself feel at least remotely safe as the five of us looked around. The raptors were on both sides of us, roaring and hissing, getting ever closer. My heart was pounding in my chest, and part of me told myself that this was it. That I might as well say my prayers because I wasn't going to leave Jurassic Park alive. I started thinking about Ian, and our kids. How they might have to deal with losing their mother tonight, and not even having said a proper goodbye to either of them since I thought we'd be home before any of this. I thought about my mother, who couldn't bear losing another child or anyone else in her life for that matter. Hell, I even thought about Ian's family.

We backed away from the raptor that came in from under the curtain, and it leapt at us. I braced myself for an impact, but as I did so, the Tyrannosaurus rex came, biting the raptor out of mid-air. With the raptor still in her mouth, she swung her head this way and that, trying to discombobulate it and finally killing it. My guess was by snapping its neck. Not noticing the second raptor beside her, the rex began to eat the one she killed, but was attacked as the raptor lunged at her and clung to her, making the rex roar in pain. During this, Ellie picked up Tim and we ran out of the Visitor's Center.

Which was perfect timing because Hammond drove up in one of the Jeeps, with Ian in the back. God, he looked pale. But once he saw that we were okay, the anxiety left his face somewhat.

"Hold on to me," Ellie told Tim.

"Mr. Hammond!" Alan hurried down the steps. We got into the Jeep, Alan in the passenger side. "After careful consideration, I've decided not to endorse your park."

With a defeated look on his face, Hammond nodded. "So have I." He said, driving off with us. I took Ian's hand in mine, holding it tightly.

"Told you we'd get out of here." I smiled a bit.

"We aren't out of here yet." Ian reminded me, staying close to me and sighing. "I'm so glad you're okay."

"Well, I'm glad you are too." I told him as we drove to the helicopter.

"Well, I'm not really okay but I guess it's, uh, it's been worse."

"You could've ended up like Gennaro." I reminded him. Ian nodded his head.

"Yeah."

Once we got there, we saw that it was waiting for us and we got out one by one, Alan and I helping Ian into the helicopter.

The last one to get in was Hammond, who looked absolutely forlorn about his park. I couldn't really imagine what he was thinking. Sure, I wasn't the biggest fan of John Hammond—especially after last night and this morning—but the fact that he did put blood, sweat and tears into this park, not to mention the money spent… To see something that you work so hard on just turn out so badly can hurt a person's self-esteem immensely. In a way, I really did pity him. Alan helped Hammond into the helicopter, and we rode in silence. Lex and Tim had fallen asleep next to Alan, and Ellie smiled softly at them. I grabbed Ian's hand, keeping it in mine as we looked at each other. I felt tears slip down my face as I stayed close to him, resting my head on his shoulder.

[][][][]

I paced outside of the hospital room as they set Ian's leg. I couldn't be around that kind of stuff, it always bothered me. Once we had arrived, I phoned Rhiannon, who was close to hysterics because we didn't return when we promised we would. I remember making the joke that it was my job to be hysterical when she doesn't come home, not the other way around.

"That's not funny right now, Mom," she snapped. After talking to her for a moment, I told her to get Evan up if he wasn't already, and to bring him to the hospital. Rhiannon mentioned about bringing Kelly, because her mother had ditched her to go to London with her current boyfriend, and of course I said yes. Even though Kelly wasn't Ian's biological daughter, he did adopt her, and he did love her as if she were biologically his. You didn't tell Ian Kelly wasn't his daughter. He would literally fight someone. Besides, Kelly was a sweet kid. Her mother didn't deserve her, and she didn't deserve a mother that, at times, filled her head with bullshit about Ian and ditch her anytime she got a man in her life.

After hanging up, I hung out outside of Ian's room, leaning on the wall.

"You doing okay?"

I looked over to see Alan and Ellie. Ellie had a bandage on her shoulder and her hair up in a small ponytail. Alan really only had a bandage on his forehead, and that was about the extent of it of what I could see. Both of them looked absolutely exhausted, and I would be surprised if I didn't look the same. I had a bandage around my right arm, something I got during the fall, and my ankle was starting to swell a bit from running around and falling back from the fucking raptor in the shed.

"I'll be okay, yeah." I nodded. "How are y'all?"

"We'll be fine," Ellie smiled. "And so will Ian."

"I know." I nodded again. "I think I can say on behalf of all of us, we had no fucking clue what was going to happen."

Ellie and Alan laughed quietly, Ellie holding Alan's hand. "No, no I don't think we did." Alan shook his head.

"That place had such a pull on you. The power of it just overwhelms anything and everything that goes inside it. I mean… Dinosaurs. Real dinosaurs, not animatronics. People like Alan and myself who have been big on the prehistoric times since we were children are easy to bring into a park like that and fall head over heels for it."

"Yeah, I know." I sighed. "I actually considered going into paleontology, but something about geography," I shrugged. "It stole me away. That's why I was head over heels for that place at first."

"I understand." Alan nodded.

"Ms. Hensen," The doctor stepped out. "You can come in now; the leg is set, and the cast is on."

I nodded. "Thank you." I smiled softly, stepping into the room as the doctor shut the door behind me. I walked over to Ian, who had his eyes closed, and sat in the chair next to him. I took his hand in mine, holding it gently. His eyes opened, and he looked over at me, smiling a bit. "Hey there," I smiled softly.

"Hey, remind me to give Joh our medical bills." Ian said, tiredly.

I chuckled a bit. "How do you feel?"

"Well, let me just say this, uh... whatever pain medicine they have me on works like a charm."

I laughed a bit. "You're not going to like what I'm about to say."

Ian's smile faded. "What?"

"Well, I talked to the doctor about your leg. He said that it was a clean break, but—"

"—No—" Ian knew what I was about to say and started to shake his head.

"—Because of the severity—"

"—Nuh uh—"

"—You're going to have to stay here for a few days."

Ian kept shaking his head. "Nope."

"Ian." I stared at him. "You're lucky you got out of Isla Nublar with a broken leg and bruised ribs. There could have been internal bleeding—hell, you could have  _died_. A few days in the hospital is not going to kill you."

"It might."

I rolled my eyes. "I'm not going to argue with you in this state. Rhiannon, Evan and Kelly are on their way to see you and you need to be in good spirits. Which is why I wanted you to know now instead of later."

"Did you call my parents?" Ian sat up a bit and I helped him.

"Not yet. I just now called the kids. They had me in there for a least an hour, checking me over. Ellie and Alan just got out as well."

"Hospitals like taking their sweet ass time, don't they?" Ian smirked a bit.

"You're telling me. Don't worry, though, I'll call your parents very soon." I stroked his cheek. Ian nodded.

"Okay." He looked up at me with those big brown eyes of his, and I smiled a bit.

"What?"

"Nothing. I was just-just thinking about something."

"What?" I repeated.

"Well, uh, this could take a few months to heal up. But I-I was thinking, maybe, after that we could go get, uh, remarried or something."

My eyes widened. "What?"

"You heard me." He smiled a bit. "I-I mean, think about it, Kerri. None of our other relationships worked out either. Our problem was that we were-we were way too young. We're older now. We could make it, uh, make it work."

"Well, as romantic as this proposal is, Ian," I joked, holding his hand in mine. "I need to know, this wedding. Is it even more romantic?"

"It could be."

"You mean like the whole shebang and everything? Because, remember, we never actually had a ceremony. I got pregnant and the idea went out the door."

"I know, I know," Ian kept my hand in his, rubbing it gently with his thumb. "I was thinking something like, uh, Vegas?"

Oh, hell. "Vegas. You want to get remarried, but you want to go to Vegas?" I stared at him.

"What's wrong with-wrong with Vegas?"

"I wanna get married by a preacher, not an Elvis impersonator."

Ian laughed, and I scooted the chair closer to his bed. "Alright, fine, we won't go to Vegas."

"Thank you." I smiled a bit. "Also, Dr. Malcolm?"

"Yes?"

"Where's my ring?"

"Uh, it should be in your jewelry box, unless you want a new one." He raised his eyebrows. I laughed quietly as the door opened, and Rhiannon and the younger kids hurried into the room. Evan was a photocopy of Ian, practically, save for the dirty blonde hair he got from me. He wore an old t-shirt that, really, really should be thrown away at this point. The collar was beginning to get a hole in it, and the bottom was just ragged. It was from that one band—I think it was Guns N' Roses or something like that. I personally wasn't a fan, but he loved them. His jeans, too, were worn and stained brown from all the running and falling in the dirt he did all the time, and his Nikes were no better. I always knew that boy had an obsession with finding out the answer to everything, and his obsession with dinosaurs was no different. Like any kid, his favorite was the Tyrannosaurus rex. But if he knew what his father and I just went through with one, he may change his mind.

Rhiannon looked a lot like me but had that dark brown hair from her father. Her eyes were a great contrast, a light blue somewhat like mine, but more like my mother's. She also dressed a bit better than her brother, but not by much. She was into the whole Grunge Look, and, today at least, wore this oversized black and red plaid shirt with her ripped jeans and combat boots. She didn't have any make up on today, but typically she wore thick eyeliner with dark colored eyeshadow and red lipstick. Rhiannon was always into a lot of rock music, Nirvana and Pearl Jam specifically. She saw Nirvana in concert once for her birthday when she turned fourteen. Boy was I out of place there. Not a bad group, but I wouldn't listen to them regularly. Rhiannon, however, listened to them constantly.

Kelly looked more like that mother of hers, with those brown eyes that could glare daggers at you if she really wanted them to. She was a tiny little thing, not really short but  _skinny_. Not unhealthily skinny, but she was one of those kids that could eat a Thanksgiving feast and not gain an ounce. It was all that gymnastics she did, that she had been doing since she was about four or five. And boy, did Kelly love her gymnastics. She looked more like an innocent little kid, with her pink shirt and jeans with her pink tennis shoes.

Rhiannon hurried over to her father, hugging him, and Ian groaned a bit.

"Not too tight, not too tight." He hugged her back and Rhiannon pulled away as I stood, making her way over to me as Evan and Kelly hurried over to their father.

"I'm so glad you two are okay…" Rhiannon pulled away, wiping her eyes. I cupped her cheeks, wiping her tears.

"Baby don't cry, everything is going to be fine." I reassured her. "Trust me."

"What happened?"

I glanced at Ian, who was currently holding a clinging Kelly. Kelly was crying a bit, much like an eight-year-old would in this situation.

"Uh, well, uh—" Ian started, clearing his throat and rubbing Kelly's back to calm her down.

"It's a long story. I'll tell you later." I cut him off. Rhiannon furrowed her eyebrows.

"Why is the story so long?" She looked confused.

"I'll tell you in the car." I gave her a look of "This is my final answer, and you better accept it," and Rhiannon backed down from all the questioning. A knock was heard on the door before it opened as Alan and Ellie came into the room.

"Alan and I were about to head out, we just wanted to check up on you." Ellie smiled softly. Before anyone else could get a word out, Evan pointed directly at Alan, a grin on his face.

"You're Alan Grant! I read your book!" He said, excitedly. Alan glanced over at Ian and myself, and I simply shrugged.

"Sorry. Forgot to tell you, Evan is a superfan of yours."

Ellie laughed quietly as Evan got up and went over to Alan, introducing himself to him. Alan glanced over at Ian and myself, and I couldn't help but laugh.

"Dr. Malcolm. Dr. Hansen." A man in a suit stood at the doorway. "Ah, Dr. Grant and Dr. Sattler. This is great, I'm so glad to have all of you in one place."

"Who the hell are you?" I heard Rhiannon pipe up next to me, and I looked over at her.

"I am Harold Dern. I represent InGen and John Hammond."


	14. Chapter 14

Epilogue

The kids were out of the room, as I stood there next to Ian's bed with my arms crossed. Ellie and Alan were on the other side as this Howard Dern was sitting in the only chair, taking out papers.

"Now, if you'll remember, before you even embarked to the island, all of you signed disclosure papers, keeping your word to not say anything about this park unless you wanted to be sued, to put it lightly."

I raised my eyebrows. "Excuse me? I didn't sign a disclosure."

Harold whipped out a paper, holding it out to me. "You're about to."

I leaned back a bit, my weight shifting to my right foot. My attitude was coming out in more ways than one, showing in my posture as I kept my arms crossed. "Excuse me?"

"Ms. Hensen—"

"Malcolm." I corrected him. "My name's Kerri Malcolm, Ian and I are getting remarried in a couple months. I just dropped the name, I never actually changed it, and I'm picking it back up."

Ian looked over at me, surprised, as did Ellie and Alan. Harold cleared his throat.

"Fine. Ms. Malcolm—"

"Better."

"You need to sign this disclosure because if what gets out on what happened in that park, InGen could go under."

"Oh, dear, what a-what a shame." Ian spat sarcastically. "Listen, your name is Dern, right? Harold Dern? Well-well, listen, Harold. I have three bruised ribs and a fractured leg. Kerri almost died, Ellie almost died and so did Alan. Not to mention the two young kids—Lex and Tim—almost dying as well. They were almost a T. rex's dinner. One man—a lawyer, Gennaro—became dinner."

"Mr. Malcolm, I understand your concern, but—"

"If you understand, then why are you arguing with him?" Ellie crossed her arms, her posture much like mine.

"Five people died on that island." Alan stressed the point.

"You're a fool if you think I'm signing that piece of paper, and fool for thinking I'm not going to talk about what happened on Nublar. So you can just roll that disclosure into a tight little wad and shove it up your ass." I glared at the lawyer.

"Ms. Malcolm," Harold stood. "You really don't want to anger people like me. We can ruin your name in a second. Just try it."

I kept my arms crossed tightly as Harold set the disclosure down, going over to the door. He turned back to say something, but I kept glaring at him as he opened the door and walked out.

"If we say anything, we'll be branded as fools." Ian said, as if he was reading my mind.

"Well, it's a risk we'll be taking, huh?" I looked over at the others. "Besides, you know some people might believe us. And who knows, one person may end up on Nublar, find the dinosaurs and gets the hell out of dodge before anything happens to them."

"Or-or they'll become dinosaur food."

"Ian's right. While that's something to hope for, it may not even happen," Ellie kicked the ground lightly with her foot. "Alan, what do you think?"

"Well, I feel like people need to know. Whether or not they believe it, it's out there and we've warned them before anything bad happens to them or to anyone else."

I nodded. "I'm with Alan."

[][][][]

What happened in the following days was insane. Sarah Harding, who Ian had previously dated, got back in touch with us not too long after the lawyer incident in the hospital, asking a million questions a second. Ian, however, was so drugged up at that point that he didn't exactly notice. We stayed in touch with her then after. I myself had never met her, but she was pretty I suppose, with that bright red hair and personality of hers. Turns out, she was the kid of Dr. Harding from the park, so she knew a lot about it.

As soon as Ian and I took to the airwaves, Ellie and Alan soon followed. However, we were branded as lunatics, Ian especially. People labeled him as the "Dinosaur Guy", mocking him wherever he went. For the rest of us, it was much of the same thing. Alan and Ellie lost most of their notoriety, and that lecture I had was cancelled. Apparently, a nut couldn't do things like that, because people might think the wrong thing. Ian also lost his job at the university he worked at, since he "took money" for the events at Nublar when he didn't, in reality. None of us did. We should have, though.

But at the same time, it felt great to get the events of Nublar off our chest. Gennaro's widow, however—lovely lady, turns out—backed us up and even sued InGen for her husband's death. 36.5  _million_ dollars. And she got every bit of it. She was one person who stuck behind our story a hundred percent.

Once Ian finished his physical therapy, since his leg was  _so fucked up_ , we remarried in September of 1993. September 15, to be exact.

And, in our typical fashion since Ian and I can't be happy with each other for long for  _some_ reason, we separated in 1995.


End file.
